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THE 



LIFE 



LOUIS, PRINCE OF CONDE, 



SURNAME© THE GREAT. 



BY LORD MAHON. 



LONDON: 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 

1845. 






LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET. 



( iii ) 

/ / / 



PREFACE. 



?3 

The Life of Conde was originally written by the author in 
the French language, and without any view of publication. 
A very small number of copies of that work was printed 
in 1 842 for a circle of personal friends. Several persons, 
however, having since expressed a wish for its appearance 
p ^ 1Jir native tongue, the following translation, executed 
nvJ ^r the s iperintendence and revision of the author, is 
no y submitted to the public. 



July, 1845. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Conde's Ancestry — His Birth and Education — His Title as Duke d'Enghien 
— His Marriage to Claire Clemence de Maille — His first Campaigns — 
Death of Cardinal Kichelieu, the Prime Minister — Enghien is sent to 
command in Champagne and Picardy — His bold Designs— Death of Louis 
XIII. — Great Victory over the Spaniards at Rocroy — Remarks of Paul 
Louis Courier on Military Reputation — Siege and Reduction of Thion- 
ville — Close of the Campaign page 1 

CHAPTER II. 

The Duchess of Enghien is delivered of a Son — Enghien's Sister, the 
Duchess de Longueville — Her dissension with Madame de Montbazon — 
Enghien's Campaign in Germany — Three days' Battle of Fribourg — 
Campaign of 1645 — Battle of Nordlingen — Enghien's dangerous Illness — ■ 
Campaign of Flanders in 1646 — Death of the Prince of Conde, and suc- 
cession of Enghien to that Title — Campaign of Catalonia in 1647 — Un- 
successful Siege of Lerida — Campaign of Flanders in 1648 — Great Victory 
at Lens • ••••••••• 26 

CHAPTER III. 

Dissensions between 'the Court and the Parliament of Paris — Arrest of 
Blancmesnil and Broussel — Insurrection of the People — The Queen Regent 
yields — Conde arrives from Flanders — His Conferences with the Coad- 
jutor, afterwards Cardinal de Retz — The Qupen Regent removes Louis 
XIV. from Paris — The War of the Fronde — Conduct of Conde in the 
Blockade of Paris — Defection of Turenne — Peace signed at Ruel . 51 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Growing Irritation between Conde and the Court — Designs of Mazarin — 
His Combination with the Frondeurs — Arrest of Conde and his Brothers — 
They are sent to the Donjon de Vincennes — Adventures of the Duchess of 
Longueville in Normandy — She embarks for Holland — The Princess of 
Conde and the Princess Dowager at Chantilly — Their Alarms and 
Anxieties ......... page 75 

CHAPTER V. 

Lettre de Cachet against the Princess brought by Du Vouldy — Her cou- 
rageous Resolution — Her Disguise of one of her Attendants — She escapes 
with her Son from Chantilly, cr~ S the Loire, and arrives at the For- 
tress of Montrond — Her Preparations for Defence — The Princess Dowager 
appears before the Parliament of Paris — The Princess combines a Civil 
War in Guyenne — She leaves Montrond — Joins the Army of the Dukes 
de Bouillon and de la Rochefoucauld — Her Residence at the Chateau de 
Turenne — Skirmish at Brive la Gaillarde • . • . .103 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Princess descends the Dordogne — Action at Monclar — Popular rising 
at Bordeaux in her favour — She enters the City — She induces the Parlia- 
ment to espouse her cause — Her able and intrepid conduct — Negotiations 
with Spain — Arrival of Don Joseph Ozorio at Bordeaux — Sanguinary 
Insurrection repressed by the Princess — Les Jurats — Siege of Bordeaux 
by the Queen Regent and the Royal Army — Attack of IS lie St George 
— Conde attempts to escape from Vincennes — He is transferred to the 
Chateau of Marcoussy 131 

CHAPTER VII. 

Attack of le Palais Gallien — Action at la Porte Dijeaux — Growing desire 
for Peace — Negotiation concluded — Interview at Bourg between the 
Princess and the Queen Regent — The Court enters Bordeaux — The 
Princess retires to her Father's house of Milly — Her reception at Valencay, 
and at Montrond— Conde conveyed from Marcoussy to the citadel of 
Havre— Death of his Mother — Steps taken in the Parliament of Paris 
towards his liberation — CJaange of Affairs — The Queen Regent detained 
as a captive — Mazarin a fugitive at the head of three hundred horse — His 
interview with Conde at Havre — Conde and his brothers set free . 157 



CONTENTS. vii 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Conde arrives at Paris — Arrival of the Princess from Montrond — Power of 
the House of Conde at this period — Erroneous Policy of the Prince — 
Fresh dissensions with the Court — He retires to St. Maur, and to Mont- 
rond — Renewal of the Civil War — Conde at Bordeaux — His campaign on 
the Charente — Return of Mazarin to France — Military movements on the 
Loire — Mademoiselle de Montpensier at Orleans — Her Courtship by 
Charles II. of England — Victory of Turenne at Jargeau . page 185 

CHAPTER IX. 

Secret departure of Conde from Gasc p v j— He traverses the centre of France 
in disguise — Adventures on the journey?— His sudden appearance at his 
army of the Loire — The action of Gien decided by his presence — Firmness 
of Turenne in retrieving the day — Conde proceeds to Paris — His treaty 
with Spain — His altercations with the Parliament — Siege of Etampes — 
Battle de la Porte St. Antoine at Paris — Conflagration and Massacre at the 
Hotel de Ville — Siege of Montrond — The place taken and demolished — 
Decline and fall of the Fronde — The Prince joins the Spaniards in 
Flanders 214 

CHAPTER X. 

j 

Conde's campaigns against France — Quarrel with his colleague the Conde de 
Fuensaldana — He takes Rocroy — Scene of his first and greatest victory 
revisited — The Princess of Conde maintains herself at Bordeaux — Her 
good conduct and popularity — The Bordelais yield, and the Princess em- 
barks at Bordeaux — Her harsh treatment by the Prince — Siege of Arras 
raised by Turenne— Queen Christina of Sweden — Conde forces the French 
lines at Valenciennes — State of affairs at Madrid — Battle of the Downs, 
near Dunkirk — Peace of the Pyrenees — Conde reinstated in France 240 

CHAPTER XI. 

First interview between Conde and Louis XIV. — Absolute power of Mazarin 
— His death at Vincennes — Retreat of Conde to Chantilly — His Son's 
marriage — Death of Anne of Austria — Mysterious event at the Hotel de 
Conde — Accusation against the Princess — Its validity examined — She is 
sent a prisoner to Chateauroux — Rabutin and Duval . • .261 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XII. 



Visit of Louis XIV. at Chantilly — Tragic fate of Vatel — Conde takes part 
in the campaign of Holland — His Nephew the Duke de Longueville 
killed — Conde himself wounded — He returns to France — His campaign 
in 1674 against the Prince of Orange — Battle of Seneff — Conde commands 
on the Rhine after the death of Turenne — His final retirement at Chantilly 
— His affection for his Son — His taste for gardening — Embellishment of 
Chantilly — Illness of his daughter-in-law, the Duchess de Bourbon — 
Conde hastens to rejoin her at Fontainebleau — His own illness and death 
— His last injunction with respect to the Princess — She dies in Prison 
eight years after him — Her Grave rifled in 1793 — Conclusion . page 276 

Appendix 292 



THE 



LIFE OF CONDE. 



CHAPTER I. 



Conde's Ancestry — His Birth and Education — His Title as Duke d'Enghien 
— His Marriage to Claire Clemence de Maille — His first Campaigns — 
Death of Cardinal Richelieu, the Prime Minister — Enghien is sent to 
command in Champagne and Picardy — His bold Designs — Death of Louis 
XIII. — Great Victory over the Spaniards at Rocroy — Remarks of Paul 
Louis Courier on Military Reputation— Siege and Reduction of Thion- 
ville — Close of the Campaign. 

Anthony de Bourbon, King of Navarre, and father of Henry 
IV., had two brothers, Francis Count d'Enghien, and Louis, 
first Prince of Conde. These titles, rather Flemish than 
French, had been brought into their family by the marriage of 
their grandfather with Marie, Lady of Enghien and Conde, only 
daughter of Peter of Luxembourg. Francis Count d'Enghien, 
having scarcely attained his twenty -fifth year, gained the battle 
of Cerisoles over the Spaniards in 1544, but died in the following 
year from the fall of a chest, which crushed his head. His 
brother, the Prince of Conde, became one of the heads of Cal- 
vinism. He played a great part in the religious wars of France, 
and was killed, in 1569, at the bloody battle of Jarnac. His 
son Henry, the second Prince of Conde, became, at the age of 
seventeen, the head of his branch, and formed an intimate friend- 
ship with his first cousin the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry 
IV. Like him he was excommunicated by the Pope, Sixtus V. 
At the battle of Coutras, in 1587, he behaved himself " like a 
" good junior to King Henry," as he had promised him before 
the onset. The following year the young Prince ditSfcat St. 
Jean d'Angely, leaving his wife with child. She was delivered 

B 



LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. i. 



of a son, who was Henry, third Prince of Conde\ In those 
rancorous times a false rumour was circulated of the illegitimacy 
of his birth, asserting that he was born thirteen months after the 
death of his father. But without having recourse to mental 
griefs — the effect of which has been sometimes alleged for similar 
delays, to the satisfaction of more than one respectable family* — 
there exist authentic documents to prove that the Prince Henry 
died on the 5th of March, and that Henry II. was born on the 
1st of September of the same year. 

The third Prince of Conde, unlike the example of his father 
and grandfather, was bred in the Roman Catholic faith. In 1609 
he married Charlotte Margaret de Montmorency, the hand- 
somest woman, it was said, in Europe. Unfortunately Henry 
IV., already nearly sixty, but still gay and amorous, did not 
see her with indifference ; and it was to be feared that a young 
woman of sixteen, not disinclined to coquetry, would be touched 
by the attentions of so great a King. The Prince, her husband, 
justly irritated, withdrew with her, first to one of his country- 
houses in Picardy ; and observing that the King did not relax 
in his pursuit, he eloped, as it were, with his own wife. He set 
off on horseback, accompanied only by two servants, one of 
whom conveyed the Princess on a pillion, and the other one of 
her women, and the party arrived that same day at Landrecies, 
the first town in the Low Countries. f 

Conde, however, soon separated himself from the Princess, 
who expressed regret at her flight, and was even at that time 
presenting a petition for her divorce to the Pope. It appears 
that she nattered herself with the hope that she could soon be- 
come Queen, as if another divorce could remove Mary de 
Medicis from the throne. But the death of the King in the fol- 
lowing year entirely changed the aspect of affairs. Conde re- 
turned to France, and distinguished himself during the stormy 
minority of Louis XIII. To obtain grants of estates and money 
was his principal ambition ; for he had inherited very little. In 

* The reader may remember the widow of Kegnard — 

" Le coeur tout gonfle d'amertume 
" Deux ans encore apres j'accouehai d'un posthume !" 

Le Legataire, Act III., Scene 8. 

f Memoirs of Bassompierre, p. 42 1 ; and Sismondi, vol. xxii. p. 172, 



1621.] HIS FATHER AND MOTHER. 3 

1612, therefore, he acquired the town, the chateau, and the depen- 
dencies of Chateauroux. Later he had them raised to a ducal 
peerage, and later still he increased them by secularising several 
abbeys.* After a long series of Court intrigues and little civil 
wars, he had returned to Paris in 1616, and was paying his re- 
spects at the Louvre when the Queen Regent gave orders to the 
Marquis de Themines to arrest him. He was conveyed to the 
Bastille, and from thence to the Donjon of Vincennes. Up to 
this time he had never been reconciled to the Princess, and the 
trial for their divorce was proceeding ; but as soon as she found 
that he was unhappy, she generously devoted herself to his in- 
terests. The King having only given her permission to visit her 
husband on the condition that she also should remain a prisoner, 
and only leave the prison whenever he did, she consented to this 
with noble courage. Thus it was that in the Donjon of Vin- 
cennes a complete reconciliation took place between them, and 
the Princess there became the mother of two children, f After 
three years of imprisonment, another revolution at Court restored 
them to liberty, and even to favour. 

In the ensuing years Conde several times commajided the 
King's armies in Picardy and on the frontiers of Spain, but 
always with more zeal than success. His favourite abode was at 
Bourges, in the centre of his domains of Berry and of the Bour- 
bonnais, which he applied himself with care to increase. He did 
not, however, neglect to pay long and frequent visits to the 
Court, whenever he thought he saw any ray of hope to his ob- 
taining new favours. Never did he allow an opportunity to 
escape him of either asking or taking. On this principle he pro- 
fited by the punishment of his brother-in-law, the Duke de 
Montmorency (who was beheaded by order of Richelieu in 1632), 
in order to confiscate his estates. It was thus that the fine do- 
mains of Chantilly, Ecouen, and St. Maur came into the pos- 
session of the House of Conde. 

The Prince and the Princess had three sons, whom they lost in 
their infancy. Their fourth was Louis, who received the title 
of Duke d'Enghien, and became afterwards the great Conde. He 
was born at Paris on the 7th of September, 1621. His consti- 
tution was frail and delicate ; he showed few signs of a long life, 

* Boulainvilliers, State of France, vol. ii. p. 213, ed. 1727. 
t Memoirs of Pontchartrain, p. 237 ; and Sismondi, vol. xxii. p. 402. 

B 2 



LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. i. 



and appeared likely to follow the example of his elder brothers ; 
but his father, uneasy at the losses he had already sustained, re- 
doubled his care for the preservation of this last hope of his 
house. Soon after his birth he had him conveyed to Montrond, 
a strongly -fortified castle which he possessed in Berry, and whose 
lofty ruins still command the little town of St. Amand. There 
the young Duke not only enjoyed a purer and more salutary air, 
but was also secure from danger in case the Prince his father 
should fall again into disgrace at Court. From the same care of 
his health, his father, instead of selecting some lady of high rank 
for his governess, confided him to the care of skilful, experienced 
nurses. The young Prince was seen with pleasure to improve 
gradually in strength. Scarcely had he been set free from 
his swaddling-clothes ere he showed a quickness beyond his 
years ; and when he began first to speak, he displayed a singular 
degree of haughtiness, which resisted, as far as a child can resist, 
the orders of the women who had the charge of him. They did 
not find it an easy task to make him either go to bed, get up, or 
eat, at the hours which they considered right for him. He feared 
no one but his father, and when this latter was absent it was dif- 
ficult to restrain him in anything. He soon acquired cunning 
enough to obtain by flattery whatever he wished to have ; and as 
he was always rewarded for the pains he took at his lessons, he 
hastened to learn all they wished to teach him to arrive at his 
own ends — namely, toys. 

When he was of an age to be taken from the care of women, 
the Prince of Conde did not consult established custom, and con- 
fide him to the care of some great nobleman, but selected La 
Boussiere, a plain gentleman. According to the testimony of 
Lenet, a faithful servant of the House of Conde, of whom we 
shall hereafter often have occasion to speak, this tutor was a 
good, worthy man, faithful and well-intentioned, and who acted 
to the letter according to the instructions given him by the 
Prince of Conde. Joined to him in the education of the young 
Prince were two Jesuits — Father Pelletier and Father Goutier — 
the former very austere, the latter very gentle. Thus accom- 
panied, the young Duke went to pursue his studies at Bourges. 
He lived in the finest house in the town, built by Jacques Coeur, 
the celebrated minister of finance to King: Charles VII. This 
house, a superb monument of ancient times, remains to this day. 



1633.] HIS STUDIES AT BOURGES. 5 

In a stone balustrade, carved in open work, may still be read 
the motto of Coeur in large characters : — 

" k CCEUR VAILLANT RIEN IMPOSSIBLE." * 

It is pleasing to think how often the eyes of the young hero 
must have rested upon these words, which only a few years later 
he confirmed by his actions. 

At the time of which I am speaking, the house of Jacques 
Coeur was close to the Jesuits' College, where the Duke 
d'Enghien went every morning and evening, like the other 
students. The only distinction which was made between him and 
the rest was a balustrade which surrounded his chair ; and the 
heads of the college instructed him in concert with the Fathers 
who were his domestic teachers. He was made to recite and 
declaim. He always gained the first prize in his class, which 
generally happens to all princes, if the professors have only 
common good breeding ; but in the case of the great Conde, it 
may easily be believed that no unusual favour had been shown 
him. In his exercises as in his studies he surpassed all the 
young gentlemen who had the honour of being his companions. 
His father positively forbade that his young comrades should 
give up to him, either in his class or at play ; and when he was 
at Bourges he watched and directed himself the education of his 
son. He not only questioned him and examined his compositions, 
but he also made him dance before him (an accomplishment in 
which the young Prince excelled), and saw him play at tennis 
and at cards, to judge of his address and of his disposition. 

At twelve years of age the Duke d'Enghien finished his course 
of philosophy, and sustained some public disputations at his 
college. His father, like a good courtier, made him dedicate 
liis first thesis to Cardinal de Eichelieu, and his second to the 
King. But amidst the talents which were every day developing 
themselves in .he young Enghien some traces were already to be 
found of that want of sensibility and of kindness of heart which 
subsequently tarnished the splendour of his glory. His father 
did not, however, spare blows to correct him. " One day," says 
Lenet, " I saw him cruelly whipped in the presence of Monsieur 
" le Prince, for having put out the eyes of a sparrow." f 

* Guide Pittoresque en France, vol. iv. Dept. du Cher, p. 8. 

t Lenef s Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 516, ed. 1729. The reader will perhaps re- 



LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. i. 



When the Prince was absent either at the Court or with his 
army, he exacted from his son a regular correspondence ; and, 
the better to judge of his progress, he had directed him, since he 
was eight years old, always to write to him in Latin. Some of 
these letters of the years 1635 and 1636 have been preserved ; 
they denote much respect and submission. After a summer 
passed at Montrond, he writes : " It is not without regret that 
" I left so agreeable a residence, where during a stay of three 
" months I never felt a moment of weariness. The fine season 
u and the beauty of advancing autumn invited me to prolong my 
" stay, but I must obey your orders, which shall always continue 
" through life to be my most endearing and sacred pleasure."* 
On another occasion he thus answers his economical father : "I 
" have kept, it is true, more dogs than my sporting required ; you 
" will forgive this fault in consideration of my first ardour for this 
" amusement ; but as soon as I received your letter I got rid of 
" all my dogs except the nine you allow me to keep. Thus 
" everything which you dislike becomes odious to me, and I 
" have nothing so near my heart as to obey your wishes."f 

It was in 1638 that the Duke d'Enghien (or rather d'Anguien, 
according to the orthography of the times) appeared at Court. 
His family consisted of one sister and one brother : Anne Gene- 
vieve, born in 1619, and called until her marriage Mademoiselle 
de Bourbon ; Armand, who was born in 1629, and who received 
the title of Prince of Conti, from a little town near Amiens 
belonging to the Prince his father. It is not perhaps entirely 
useless to state that as first Prince of the Blood the Prince of 
Conde was generally called " Monsieur le Prince " only, as his 
eldest son was also known as " Monsieur le Due." We may 
also observe that none of these Princes ever signed themselves 
by their titles, but by their names ; as for example, our hero, 
either as Duke d'Enghien, or afterwards as Prince of Conde, 
always signed himself as " Louis de Bourbon,'' and his brother 
" Armand de Bourbon." 

member the use so ably made of a similar anecdote by the author of 
1 Zeluco.' 

* Letter of the 1st November, 1635, translation from the Latin. 

t Letter of the 2nd December, 1635. These letters are printed in the 
Historical Essay on the Great Conde, by his great grandson, Louis Joseph, 
Prince of Conde'. Lenet is the only person who furnishes us with any de- 
tails as to the youth of the hero. 



1639.] HIS FIRST APPEARANCE AT COURT. 7 

When Enghien first made his appearance at Court they were 
celebrating with much pomp and joy fulness the birth of the 
Dauphin, afterwards Louis XIY. — the first fruits of a marriage 
which had lasted twenty years, but which had been hitherto 
childless. The young Duke was the principal ornament of these 
fetes. But at the same time many subjects for grave reflection 
suggested themselves to him. He saw the King, Louis XIII. , and 
the Queen, Anne of Austria, equally bending under the yoke of 
Cardinal Richelieu, that proud and stern statesman, who was 
hated but obeyed by his masters. While his Eminence was dis- 
pensing of his own free will favours and employments, send- 
ing all the orders, and receiving all the reports, the King, sullen 
and melancholy and with declining health, usually retired to St. 
Germain, and limited his occupations to the chase of foxes and 
badgers. The Queen, on her part, having long lost the affections 
of her husband, and having failed in several plots against the 
Cardinal, saw herself surrounded by spies and accusers, while 
her principal partisans were either prisoners in fortified castles or 
exiled to foreign Courts. Thus the great Minister, at the pinnacle 
of his power, saw the whole Court prostrate at his feet ; and 
amongst all these titled servants, there was none more submissive 
or supple than the old Prince of Conde. 

Since 1635 war had been declared between France and Spain, 
and was proceeding, though faintly on both sides. The Prince 
of Conde having been named in 1639 commander-in-chief of the 
army in Roussillon, his son pressed vehemently for permission 
to accompany him as a volunteer. But the Prince of Conde, 
thinking him still too young and delicate for the wars, would 
only allow him to go and take the command of his government in 
Burgundy. Thus the Duke found himself initiated in the affairs 
of state before he was eighteen years of age ; and though, as 
may be supposed, the most important were not regulated by him, 
still his conduct did not fail to obtain for him the esteem and 
respect of his province. The din of arms which resounded 
throughout Europe, however, strongly affected his mind, and 
made him sigh for an opportunity of displaying his courage. 
So early as 1636 he had written to his father: " I read with 
" pleasure the heroic actions of our Kings in history. ... I feel a 
" holy ambition to imitate them, and follow in their track when 



LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. 



" my age and capacity shall have made me what you wish." Since 
that time he devoured all the works which related in any way 
to the art of war, and questioned all the officers who had ac- 
quired any reputation. 

The following year his wishes were at last fulfilled. He ob- 
tained leave to make his first campaign in Flanders, under the 
Marechal de la Meilleraie. He saw the siege and taking of 
Arras — a siege which lasted two months — and during which he 
distinguished himself by the most brilliant valour. 

On his return he went to pay a visit to Cardinal de Riche- 
lieu, at his country-house at Ruel. The Minister, already 
informed of his rising reputation, and wishing to judge of him 
himself, encouraged him to converse on many subjects. We are 
assured that he said afterwards to M. de Chavigni : "I have 
" just had a conversation of two hours with Monsieur le Due on 
" religion, war, politics, the interests of princes, and the adminis-* 
" tration of a state ; he will certainly be the greatest captain of 
" all Europe, and the first man of his time, and perhaps of all 
" future times — in all things."* But since it is only a panegy- 
rist who acquaints us with these details, we may be permitted to 
suspect that this prophecy, like many others on great men, was 
but an afterthought. 

However great was Richelieu's elevation, he could hardly 
flatter himself with the hope of an alliance with the Princes of 
the Blood ; they were willing to be his servants, but not his 
kinsmen. The thirst for places, however, which tormented the 
Prince of Conde, caused him at last to surmount the barriers of 
his rank. According to the Memoirs of Mademoiselle, daughter 
of Gaston Duke of Orleans, "the Minister saw Monsieur de 
" Conde ask of him, almost on his knees, his niece, and plead for 
" that object as eagerly as though he had in view for his son the 
" sovereign of the world. "f This niece was Claire Clemence 
de Maille Breze, daughter of the Marechal Duke de Breze, who 
was widower of a sister of Cardinal Richelieu. The House of 
Maille, though ancient and illustrious in Anjou, and having 
contributed to the Crusades one of its bravest champions, was 

f Father Bergier, Memorable Actions, p. 204; Desormeaux's Histoire 
de Conde, vol. i. p. 43. 

f Memoirs of Mademoiselle, vol. i. p. 53, ed. 1746. 



1641.] HIS MARRIAGE. 



yet not a suitable connection for the Royal Family of France. 
Notwithstanding, Monsieur le Prince wishing to express to the 
Minister an unbounded attachment, entreated him not only to 
give his niece to the Duke d'Enghien, but at the same time to 
marry Mademoiselle de Bourbon to his nephew, the young Duke 
de Breze. The Cardinal replied drily that he would willingly 
give gentlewomen to princes, but not gentlemen to princesses ! 

The Duke d'Enghien on his part expressed the strongest repug- 
nance to this marriage. He resisted as far as possible ; but he 
was obliged to submit to his father, who was always thoroughly in 
earnest whenever it came to a question of pleasing men in power. 
The betrothing took place, therefore, on the 7th of February, 
1641, in the King's closet, according to the custom of Princes of 
the Blood, and on the same day Monsieur le Prince gave a grand 
ball in the Cardinal's palace. But a slight accident somewhat 
disturbed the fete. Mademoiselle de Breze, who was very short 
(she was hardly thirteen years of age), fell as she was dancing a 
courante, in consequence of her having been made to wear a 
pair of high-heeled shoes, to give her stature — so high that she 
could hardly walk. No considerations of respect could prevent 
the company from laughing aloud, not even excepting the Duke 
d'Enghien, who was not sorry of an opportunity of showing his 
contempt for his wife. A few days after he fell so seriously ill, 
that his death was apprehended, and everybody (such good- 
nature is not uncommon) did not forget to attribute his illness 
to the grief which his marriage had caused him. 

Claire Clemence de Maille by no means deserved such despair. 
Born in 1628,* she was yet a child, and Mademoiselle declares 
that two years after her marriage she still amused herself with 
dolls.f But we shall see by and bye what great and good qua- 
lities developed themselves in her mind, and we shall have cause 
to admire by turns her resignation in suffering, and her courage 
in action* She continued always of small stature, but was not 
wanting in personal attractions. According to a contemporary, 
who was by no means one of her friends, " she was far from plain ; 



* Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, Table, vol. vi. p. 361, ed. 1782. 
t Memoirs of Mademoiselle, vol. i. p. 57, ed. 1746. 



10 LIFE OF CONDE. [chat. i. 

" she had beautiful eyes, a fine complexion, and a pretty figure. 
" She conversed agreeably whenever she chose to speak."* 

To this portrait of the Bride let us add another of the Bride- 
groom, drawn by the same hand. " His eyes were blue and full 
" of vivacity ; his nose was aquiline, his mouth was very dis- 
" agreeable from being very large, and his teeth too prominent : 
" but in his countenance generally there was something great 
" and haughty, somewhat resembling an eagle. He was not 
" very tall, but his figure was perfectly well proportioned. He 
" danced well, had an agreeable expression, a noble air, and a 
" very fine head."f 

Notwithstanding his marriage, or rather in consequence of his 
marriage, the young Duke showed more ardour than ever for the 
wars. Scarcely had he recovered from his illness ere he flew to 
the Marechal de Meilleraie's army, and received the command of 
the volunteers. But the campaign was not a brilliant one ; the 
Marshal only succeeded in reducing the little town of Aire, 
after a siege of two months, and he saw it retaken by the 
Spaniards before the end of the year. 

The following year Louis XIII., though almost dying, in- 
sisted upon going himself to command his army on the frontiers 
of Spain. . He was accompanied by the Duke d'Enghien. This 
campaign achieved for France the entire conquest of Roussillon, 
and the young Duke distinguished himself very much at the 
sieges of Collioure, Perpignan, and Salces. 

In returning from Roussillon the Duke d'Enghien took the 
road by Lyons, but neglected to go and visit Cardinal Al- 
phonse de Richelieu, Archbishop of Lyons, and brother of the 
Minister. At the first interview which he had with the latter, 
when he was at Paris, the Cardinal inquired after the health of 
his brother — and it became necessary to acknowledge that he had 
not been visited. The Cardinal made no answer, but expressed 
his resentment to the Prince of Conde, and frightened him so 
much that the Prince lost no time in rushing to his son and 
commanding him to post back instantly to Lyons and repair his 
fault. He was obliged to obey, and make a dismal journey of 
200 leagues in the worst season of the year. It is even said that 

* Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, vol. iii. p. 526, ed. 1723. 

f Memoirs of de Motteville, vol. i. p. 431. This portrait dates from 1647. 



1642.] DEATH OF EICHELIEU. 11 

the Cardinal Alphonse, informed of the Duke d'Enghien's journey, 
repaired to Marseilles on purpose to give the Prince the trouble 
of going farther in search of him,* On his return the Minister 
received the Duke d'Enghien as before, put to him the same 
question on the health of his brother, and the Duke having 
answered it, Richelieu appeared satisfied. 

This all-powerful Minister, however, approached the termina- 
tion of his career. A slow fever was consuming his body, but 
his genius and courage never shone more brilliantly. Never did 
he appear more formidable to the enemies, or more haughty and 
arrogant to the Sovereign, of France. He formed plans for the 
following year in Spain and in Italy, in Flanders and in 
Germany. He gave orders to his guards (for he had guards like 
a prince) no longer to lower their arms in the King's presence. 
He never left his arm-chair during a visit which the Queen paid 
him at Rue] ; and far from excusing himself on the plea of ill- 
ness, he claimed it as the privilege of Cardinals. Death alone 
could triumph over his ambition. 

His physicians wishing to flatter him to the last, told him 
that his state was not entirely hopeless ; and that God, seeing Mow 
necessary he was to France, would, no doubt, perform a miracle 
to preserve him. But Richelieu sent for Chicot, physician to 
the King, and besought him, not as a physician but as a friend, 
to tell him the truth. Chicot, after some little hesitation, told 
him plainly that in twenty-four hours he would either be dead 
or cured. " That is speaking out as you ought," replied the 
Cardinal ; " now I understand you."f He caused the King 
to be sent for, and settled with him the future administration 
of public affairs, just as if his own had been in question. 
He nominated as his successor Cardinal Mazarin, whose zeal 
and ability he had already tried ; and the subdued Monarch 
promised to conform in all things to the last wishes of his ex- 
piring Minister. Then Richelieu, with as firm a voice and 
as serene a countenance, turned towards his religious duties. 
His Confessor urging him to forgive all his enemies, he coldly 
replied, that he had never had any except those of the State. 
He received without emotion the absolution and the sacrament 

* Memoirs of Montglat, vol. ii. p. 64, ed. 1727. 
t Memoirs of Montresor, p. 397, ed. 1826. 



12 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. i. 

of extreme unction. The Bishops, who were assembled around 
him, were edified by so much calmness and indifference. One 
only amongst them, Cospeau, then Bishop of Nantes, formed a 
contrary opinion. " In truth," said he, on retiring, u that great 
" security alarms me ! " * 

Thus died Cardinal Richelieu, the 4th of December, 1642. 
At this news every one breathed more freely, as if relieved of a 
heavy weight. Even from his tomb, however, Richelieu still 
commanded. All the legacies of places and governments which 
he had made were confirmed to the letter ; all his relations, his 
friends, and his creatures were continued in their employments. 
" There never was a King in France,'' says an historian, " whose 
" will was so much respected as that of Richelieu/'f But while 
he maintained the same political system as Richelieu, Mazarin, 
whose personal character was far different, replaced severity by 
suppleness. He had himself shared with others the fear which 
Richelieu inspired ; and on this principle of fear he bowed 
before any powerful supplicant. The prisons were opened, the 
exiles recalled, and whilst the enemies of Richelieu were thus 
pardoned, new favours were bestowed to warm the zeal of his 
partisans. 

The House of Conde*, allied to the former Minister and the 
main-stay of the new one, was not the last to profit by this general 
indulgence. Monsieur le Prince had everywhere yielded to the 
deceased Cardinal the precedence of rank, against all ancient usage. 
He carried this submission so far as to raise the tapestry and hold 
it when Richelieu passed through a door.j But at the death of the 
Minister, Monsieur le Prince, and Monsieur le Due still more 
haughtily, claimed the rights due to their birth. At their re- 
quest the King granted to the Princes of the Blood their prece- 
dence over the Cardinals ; and the supple Mazarin was the first 
to approve and adopt this new regulation. 

Another still more important order granted to the Duke 
d'Enghien the object of his most ardent wishes, the command 



* Profecto nimium me terret magna ilia securitas. St. Aulaire, Histoire 
de la Fronde, vol. i. p. 96. See also the Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, 
vol. i. p. 115. 

t Desormeaux, vol. i. p. 56. 

X Memoirs of Montglat, vol. ii. p. 64. 



1643.] DEATH OF LOUIS XIII. 13 

in chief of the army which was to defend Champagne and 
Picardy. The young General went to his post at the very first 
opening of spring. Yet what boldness, or let us rather say, 
what base flattery, to confide the welfare of the State to a warrior 
of twenty-one ! What proofs had he yet been able to give of his 
great genius ? I find in the Letters of Yoiture, that only a short 
time before this campaign the Duke d'Enghien, in assemblies of 
ladies at Paris, still played at little games, particularly at the one 
called " The Fishes," in which he represented " the Jack ! "* 

During this time Louis XIII., weighed down by sorrows and 
by sickness, visibly approached the termination of his sufferings. 
He remained six weeks at least in a dying state, without his life 
coming to a final close. He showed no dread of his approaching 
end, and spoke of it constantly, as he would have done in speak- 
ing of the death of any one else ; but the feeling which most 
oppressed the unhappy Prince was the distrust he had of his own 
family: If there was a person in the world whom he hated more 
than his brother, that person was his wife. A short time before 
his death she had sent M. de Chavigni with a message expressive 
of her respect and tenderness ; imploring him to believe above 
all, that she had never conspired against his person. The King 
replied, without showing any emotion, " In my present state I 
" ought to forgive her, but I am not obliged to believe her."t On 
another occasion, seeing the Duke de Beaufort and others of the 
Queen's party approaching him with an appearance of curiosity, 
" These people," said he, " are come to see if I shall die soon : 
" ah ! if I can but recover, I will make them pay dearly for the 
" wish they have that I should die !"J At intervals, however, he 
reproached himself for these expressions of hatred. His devo- 
tion was sincere, but not enlightened. The last order which he 
gave was to remove from his room the Marechal de Chatillon 
because he was a Huguenot ; and it was thus he expired on the 
14th of May, 1643. His contemporaries had given him during 
his life the surname of " Louis the Just ;" but when one searches 
for the reason, one finds that it was only because he was born 
under the constellation of the Scales ! 

* Letters of Voiture, vol. i. p. 319, ed. 1709. 

f Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld, the part unpublished till 1817, p. 44. 

X Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, vol. i. p. 121, ed. 1723. 



14 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. i. 

According to the King's will, the title of Regent was granted 
to the Queen during the minority of her son, but her authority 
was restrained within very narrow limits by the Council of 
Regency, composed of Gaston Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis 
XIII., of the Prince of Cond^, of Cardinal Mazarin, and of 
three other Ministers of Richelieu's school. All the affairs of 
peace, of war, and finance were to be decided in this Council by 
the majority of votes. The King on signing the will had added 
in his own handwriting, " The above is my most express desire, 
" which I will have carried into execution." Hardly four days 
after his death, however, Anne of Austria, clad in deep mourn- 
ing, conducted the little King, still in his bib, to hold a Court of 
Justice at the Parliament, when the Chancellor read a declara- 
tion which broke through all the arrangements of Louis XIII., 
and conferred the whole power upon the Regent. The Duke 
of Orleans and the Prince of Conde, accustomed to bend, and 
hoping everything from the Queen's favour, were the first to 
give their opinion in favour of the declaration, and it passed 
without a dissentient voice through the Parliament, which was 
proud of the acknowledgment thus rendered to its political 
power. Cardinal Mazarin, who had only a few days before 
recommended the will to please the King, also advised its being 
revoked to please the Queen ; and this latter, in gratitude for his 
zeal and ability, was ready to continue him in his functions of 
Prime Minister. 

After this rapid glance at the Court revolutions, let us follow 
the Duke d'Enghien to his army. It consisted at first of only 
twelve thousand men, distributed around his head-quarters at 
Amiens, while Don Francisco de Melo, at the head of twenty- 
seven thousand Spaniards, hovered about the frontier, and 
appeared to hesitate whether he should aim his first blow at 
Picardy or at Champagne. The enemy were aware of Louis 
XIII.'s approaching end, and thought this a propitious mo- 
ment for a great effort against France. At first they seemed 
to menace Landrecies, and the Duke d'Enghien was already 
marching towards that point, when he learnt that they had 
turned their steps towards the Meuse, and were besieging 
Rocroy. The governor of the fortress sent word to the Duke 
that the outworks of this place were already carried, that he 



1643.] CAMPAIGN IN PICARDY. 15 

could not hold out any longer, and that he should be obliged 
to surrender unless he was promptly relieved.* 

This news reached the young General at Origny at the same 
time as that of the King's death. He concealed both from his 
soldiers, in the fear of discouraging them. His friends, to whom 
he confided it, advised him to abandon the defence of the fron- 
tier and to march to Paris with his army to make himself um- 
pire of the Eegency. The Prince at once repelled this perfidious 
counsel. On the other hand, the old Marechal de l'Hopital never 
ceased preaching to him of prudence towards the enemy, saying 
that it was far better to lose a single town than to expose the 
safety of the State to the risk of an unequal conflict. The Duke 
had been charged on his departure to consider this Marechal as 
his guide, and he had been specially sent with the army to act as 
his curb, for the Duke's courage was already well known, but not 
so his genius in war. 

But the mind of the hero was not long in developing itself. 
He undertook to establish the new Regency by a great battle — in 
spite of the flatterers who wished to draw him to Paris — in spite 
of the Mentor who wished to enchain him in his camp. One has 
often seen (and the sight is not attractive) a young prince placed 
at the head of an army to bear away the laurels which other hands 
have gathered, while the courtier-general who commands under 
his name gains his Marshal's baton, not by publishing, but by 
concealing and denying his own portion of the glory. But where 
shall we find, in modern history, another example of a chief of 
twenty-one marching towards a brilliant victory, not by the ad- 
vice of his counsellors, but against the advice of his counsellors, 
surprising, by the dexterity of his manoeuvres, generals who had 
become grey in the service, and at the same time quickening 
them by his youthful courage ? 

At Origny the Duke had already received a reinforcement of 
eight or ten thousand men. With all these united forces he 
pushed on towards Rocroy, hardly giving them time to refresh 
themselves on the road, and persuading the Marechal de l'Hopital 
that he did not wish to risk a battle, and had no other object in 
view than to throw relief into the place. All his confidence was 

* Memoirs of Montglat, vol. ii. p. 97. 



16 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. i. 

reserved to Gassion, an experienced and intrepid officer, whom he 
had sent on in advance with a detachment of cavalry, to effect, if 
possible, the entrance of ammunition and stores into Rocroy, and 
also to take a closer view of the position and strength of the enemy. 
Gassion had carried his orders into execution with equal success 
and bravery. In returning to the Prince he gave him an account 
of all the obstacles which the nature of the country opposed to 
his project — the thick forests of Ardennes, the deep marshes, 
a narrow defile, all which served as ramparts to the Spanish 
army ; and this army was composed of picked troops, that fine 
infantry, above all — those famous Tercios which had been looked 
upon as invincible since the great days of Pavia and St. Quentin. 
Notwithstanding all his ardour, Gassion pointed out to the Prince 
the very serious and fatal results of a failure. " I shall not be a 
" witness to them," replied the Prince, with somewhat of a 
selfish firmness ; " Paris will never see me again but as a con- 
" queror or a corpse !" 

On that same day, however, May 17, Enghien called together 
a council of war. He told them of Gassion's information — he 
announced the King's death — he pointed out the importance of 
re-assuring the alarmed capital and the tottering state by a great 
victory. The warmth and confidence with which he spoke 
gained him nearly all their votes. The Marechal de FHopital 
himself appeared to yield his opinion to that of the Prince, but 
he was not the less anxious to avoid a battle : he flattered himself 
that the Spaniards, in defending the defile, would prevent the 
conflict from becoming general. But Don Francisco de Melo 
nourished greater views. Reckoning upon the superiority of his 
numbers, he not only intended to arrest the progress of the French 
army, but entirely to destroy it. When, therefore, on the 18th, 
at the dawn of day, Enghien presented himself at the entrance of 
the defile he found no one, and his troops passed through without 
the smallest resistance. " The two generals," said Bossuet, a 
long time afterwards, " seemed to have determined to shut them- 
" selves up between forests and marshes, to decide their quarrels, 
" as two knights of olden time in champ-clos" 

The Marechal de lTiopital then felt that the step to which he 
had consented would involve more important results. He em- 
ployed all his rhetoric (and bad generals always have plenty) in 
dissuading the Prince from his design. The debate was sharp and 



1643. J BATTLE OF ROCROY. 17 

violent; but Enghien decided it by saying, in a commanding 
tone, that he would take upon himself the issue of the event. 
Without replying one word, the Marshal went and placed him- 
self at the head of the left wing, which Enghien had assigned to 
him. The Duke himself commanded the right wing, having Gas- 
sion under him in the command. Already had the troops spread 
forth into the plain, in the centre of which is the town of Rocroy, 
and which is surrounded on all sides by the forest of Ardennes. 
The ground was uneven and difficult, and if Don Francisco had 
charged under these circumstances the fate of a portion of the 
French army would have been decided. But Enghien, moving 
forward with a detachment of cavalry, manoeuvred with so 
much dexterity as completely to mask the slow and laborious 
march of his infantry and artillery. It was thus that he at 
last succeeded in conveying all his troops to a height, only 
separated from the Spaniards by a narrow valley, according to 
the plan he had formed the nig-ht before. The cannon of both 
armies were soon heard to peal ; but it was six o'clock in the 
evening, and the two Generals did not choose to commit to the 
hazard of a night-attack either their reputations or their armies. 

Even at this moment, however, the indiscretion of a single 
officer, La Ferte Sennecterre, had all but proved fatal to the 
Duke d' Enghien and his army. His post was in the left wing, 
and the Duke had desired him to remain stationary ; but in spite 
of these orders, jealous of Gassion, and wishing to equal his ex- 
ploit by succeeding in throwing succours into Rocroy, he moved 
on his cavalry towards that town, and took several battalions 
along with him. One may judge of the Duke's sorrow when he 
learnt that his left wing was entirely exposed, and that Melo 
was advancing with his army to take advantage of the error, 
Without losing a moment, he made the troops of the second line 
fill up the space abandoned by the first, while an aide-de-camp 
carried his imperative orders to La Ferte to turn back instantly. 
The able arrangement of Enghien, and the quick return of La 
Ferte, happily prevented the Spanish attack ; and the guilty offi- 
cer disarmed the reproaches of the Prince by promising to efface 
on the morrow, even with his blood, an error which indeed 
arose only from an excess of zeal. 

The coming night, which was to be the last to many thousand 

c 



18 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. t. 

men, proved cold and dark, and the soldiers of both armies had 
recourse to the neighbouring forest. They lighted so many fires 
that the whole plain was illuminated by them. In the distance 
was to be seen Rocroy, the prize which was to be contended for 
the next day, and the two armies appeared like one, so nearly did 
the outposts approach each other. One might almost say that a 
kind of truce united them for several hours ; and nothing inter- 
rupted the stillness of the night save now and then, at long inter- 
vals, the firing of cannon from the besieged town, which seemed 
to be redoubled by the echoes of the forest. 

The Duke d'Enghien throwing himself before afire, which had 
been piled in the open air, and wrapping his cloak around him, was 
asleep in a few moments. His slumbers were so sound that it was 
necessary to awaken him on the following morning when day began 
to dawn. The same trait is told of Alexander on the morning 
of the battle of Arbela.* Rising immediately, Enghien per- 
mitted his body armour to be put on, but instead of a helmet 
would only wear a hat adorned by large white plumes. He re- 
membered, probably, the celebrated war-cry of his cousin the 
great Henry — " Rally round my white plume !" and in truth 
the plumes which waved on Enghien's head did serve in the fray 
as a rallying-point for several squadrons, which without this or- 
nament would not have recognised him. Then he mounted his 
horse, and galloped through the ranks, giving his final orders. 
The rallying-word was " Enghien." The officers remembered 
with pleasure the conflict at Cerisoles, won a century before by 
a prince of the same blood and the same name, whilst the soldiers, 
touched by the youth and agreeable countenance of their Gene- 
ral, received him everywhere with shouts of joy. All the arrange- 
ments having been made, the trumpets sounded to the charge, 
and at that moment Enghien darted forward like lightning at the 
head of his cavalry on the right wing. He found the enemy in 
order of battle, and ready to receive him. Don Francisco de 

* Plutarch's Lives, vol. ix. p. 70, translation by Dacier, ed. 1762. The 
circumstances of this glorious day became sometimes the subject for private 
theatricals in France ; and in a letter by Madame de Sevigne of the 12th 
of February, 1690, may be found an obscure allusion to her granddaughter 
Pauline as representing " the young officer at the battle of Rocroy who dis- 
" tinguished himself so agreeably by killing the trumpeter who had awak- 
u ened the Prince too early I" Did this refer to any real event ? 



1643.] BATTLE OF EOCROY. 19 

Melo expected every moment a reinforcement of six thousand 
men under General Beck, but did not consider them to be neces- 
sary, as he already had nearly five thousand men more than the 
French. Under him, the infantry was commanded by the old 
Conde de Fuentes, an officer of great merit, who had for a long 
while balanced the fortunes of the Princes of Orange. Become 
helpless from gout, he could no longer either walk or mount a 
horse, but was obliged to have himself carried in a litter at the head 
of his regiments, in the centre of the army. Both generals and 
soldiers were in expectation of an easy victory, and that expecta- 
tion, as has often been the case with the Spanish armies, contri- 
buted principally to their overthrow. Melo himself commanded in 
the right wing, opposite to the Marechal de l'Hopital, and he had 
confided the other to the Duke d' Albuquerque. Foreseeing Eng- 
hien's attack, he had sent an ambuscade of a thousand musketeers 
into a little copse-wood, which spread along on the right of the 
French, to charge them in the rear the moment they had advanced 
into the valley ; but Enghien, perceiving this manoeuvre, turned 
all its danger upon Melo himself, for by directing his course at 
first sideways he fell upon the musketeers and cut them to pieces. 
He then immediately ordered Gassion, with a few squadrons of 
horse, to attack Albuquerque's flank while he attacked his front. 
This assault was so well combined, that in a very few moments 
the Spanish regiments were seen dispersed and thrown over one 
another. 

But all this time the same success had not prevailed on the 
side of the Marechal de l'Hopital. Melo had vigorously Te- 
pulsed him ; the Marshal himself was dangerously wounded, 
and borne along far from the fray. La Ferte Sennecterre, also 
wounded, was a prisoner, and his artillery was at the mercy of 
Melo. In fact, the whole left wing of the French army was put 
to flight. The victorious Spaniards stopped only at sight of the 
troops of reserve. This reserve was commanded by the Baron 
de Sirot, a brave Burgundian officer (I should rather have 
thought him a Gascon !), who boasted of a very singular thing — 
of having been in three pitched battles, of fighting hand to hand 
with three Kings (namely, the Kings of Poland, Sweden, and 
Denmark), and of having carried away proofs of having seen 
them so near : the hat of one, the scarf of another, and one of 

c 2 



20 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. i. 

the pistols of the third.* Several officers already pressed Sirot 
to retire, assuring him that the battle was lost. " No, no/' re- 
plied he proudly, " it is not lost, for Sirot and his companions 
" have not yet fought I" He stood therefore firmly to his post ; 
but he would not have been able to maintain it much longer 
without a bold and skilful manoeuvre of the Duke d'Enghien's. 
The Duke was pursuing his vanquished enemies on the left when 
he heard of the defeat of his right wing. Without losing an 
instant he collected all his cavalry, and determined to guide them 
all along the rear of the Spanish lines. Fortune favoured his 
boldness ; and arriving thus at the other wing, and taking Melo's 
troops in the rear, he snatched from them a victory which seemed 
almost secure. La Ferte and the other prisoners were set free, 
the lost artillery was not only recovered, but the enemy's too was 
taken, and the enemy were in their turn put to flight. 

There yet remained, however, to vanquish all the Spanish in- 
fantry which was posted in the centre, and had not yet joined 
in the conflict. Enghien was observing, not without some un- 
easiness, their haughty bearing and their immovable calmness, 
when news was brought him that General Beck, bringing to the 
enemy a reinforcement of six thousand fresh troops, was at a very 
little distance from the field of battle. The Duke, without hesita- 
tion, detached Gassion with a portion of the cavalry to delay this 
reinforcement as long as possible, while he presented himself at 
the head of the rest to fall upon the Spanish infantry before the 
junction could be effected. Then it was that the Conde de 
Fuentes proved how the powers of mind can triumph over the 
infirmities of the body. From his litter shone forth the lightning 
of a noble courage, tried in twenty battles, and exciting the admi- 
ration even of his enemies. He allowed the French cavalry to 
advance within fifty feet, then spreading out several of his bat- 
talions he disclosed a battery of guns charged with cartridges. 
This discharge, accompanied by a terrible volley of musketry, 
carried death and terror into the French ranks. They were re- 
pulsed in the greatest disorder ; and even their own writers ac- 
knowledge that if Fuentes had had a division of cavalry to second 

* This curious trait is to be found in the Memoirs of Abbe Arnauld, 
p. 216, ed. 1824. 



1643.] BATTLE 0* ROCROY. 21 

him, he might still perhaps have snatched the victory from the 
Duke d'Enghien.* 

For want of this Spanish cavalry, which was already put to 
flight, Enghien was able to rally his own ; and seeing how every 
moment was becoming more precious, he led them a second time 
to the charge. In spite of his ardour and perseverance he was 
repulsed a second time. A third attack which he directed did 
not prove more successful ; but during this time his reserve, for 
which he had sent, arrived, and by their means Enghien was 
able to surround on all sides the brave Spanish infantry. Besides, 
their best soldiers had fallen in the three murderous attacks, and 
their chief was expiring of several wounds he had received. 
Their officers then saw that they must yield to numbers, and 
they came forth from the ranks making signs with their hats, 
and asking for quarter. Enghien advanced towards them to 
receive their submission and give them his word ; but when he 
was only at a few steps distance, the Spanish soldiers mistook his 
intention : they fancied he was ordering a fresh attack, and they 
made a tremendous discharge. It was considered almost a 
miracle that the Duke, being so near them, had not either been 
killed or wounded. The French, however, taking the error of 
the Spaniards for an act of perfidy, fell upon them from all sides, 
and inflicted a most dreadful slaughter. In vain did the Duke 
call to them with all his might to spare the vanquished. It was 
by the greatest efforts only that he succeeded in saving from this 
butchery some officers covered with blood, and already half 
dead. 

Meanwhile Enghien expected still to have to hold out against 
the corps under General Beck ; but the runaway Spanish cavalry 
having joined that corps, and having communicated to it their 
own alarm, General Beck had retired with such precipitation 
that he had even abandoned some of his artillery. It was 
Gassion himself who came to announce this good news to the 
Duke. Then Enghien, assured of the most complete victory, 
threw himself on his knees at the head of his army, to return 
thanks to the God of battles. On rising from his knees he em- 
braced Gassion with great emotion, as the principal instrument 
of his victory, and promised him, in the King's name, the baton 
* Desormeaux, Hist, vol. i. p. 102. 



22 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. i. 

of a French Marshal, which Gassion accordingly received at the 
close of the campaign. On the other officers, and even on La 
Ferte Sennecterre, he lavished praises and rewards. One might 
have said, on hearing him, that he would not reserve for himself 
the smallest portion of the glory which he had just gained. 

In this battle, disputed with so much animosity for six hours, 
the loss of the French, according to their own computation, 
amounted to two thousand men killed or wounded, but was pro- 
bably still more considerable. That of the Spaniards was im- 
mense, and their infantry especially, which since the great day 
at Pavia had been considered invincible, was destroyed rather 
than conquered at Rocroy. Of eighteen thousand men which 
formed this infantry, nearly nine thousand were killed in the 
ranks assigned to them, and seven thousand were taken. Such 
was the pride of these old bands, celebrated all over Europe, that 
a French officer having the next day asked a Spaniard what 
were their numbers before the battle, " You have only," replied 
he, " to count the dead and the prisoners ! " The old Conde de 
Fuentes, pierced with many wounds, was found expiring by the 
side of his broken litter. " Ah ! " exclaimed Enghien, on con- 
templating these sad remains, " had I not conquered, I should 
" have wished to die like him ! " Fuentes' litter was for a long 
time preserved at Chantilly as the principal trophy of this bril- 
liant victory. All the Spanish artillery, consisting of twenty- 
four cannon, and their standards, of which there were three 
hundred, fell into the hands of the conquerors. The General-in- 
chief himself, Don Francisco de Melo, was for a moment amongst 
the prisoners, but found means during the fray to escape, throwing 
away his General's staif, which was afterwards found and pre- 
sented to the Duke d'Enghien. Two other Spanish officers, Don 
George de Castelui and the Conde de Garces, were taken by 
Enghien's own hand. The Duke received three shots during the 
battle — two in his breastplate and another in his leg, which only 
bruised him — but his horse was wounded by two musket balls : 
so that one sees he was no less a good soldier than a great 
captain. 

In our days, however, a writer who has attained some reputa- 
tion by dint of libels— I mean Paul Louis Courier — has set him- 
self against the victor of Rocroy, and at the same time against all 



1643.] MILITARY CRITICS. 23 

other military reputations. According to him : — t§ I am ready to 
u believe, since everybody says it, that there is an art in war, but 
" you must acknowledge that it is the only one which requires no 
" apprenticeship. It is the only art one knows without ever 
" having learnt it. In all others study and time are requisite : 
" one begins by being a scholar, but in this one is at once a 
" master ; and if one has the least talent for it, one accomplishes 
" one's chef-d'ceuvreat the same time with one's coup d'essai. . . . 
'• A young Prince of eighteen posts down from the Court, gives 
" a battle, gains it, and then he is a great captain for the rest of 
" his life, and the greatest captain of the world ! " * But without 
pausing to observe that Enghien was nearly twenty-two, that he 
had studied the art of war with the greatest zeal, and that he 
had already served in three campaigns, may we not allow 
something to the sudden flash of heroic genius ? Shall we not 
rather say with Cardinal de Retz, although the enemy of Conde, 
" Monsieur le Prince was born a captain, which never happened 
" but to him, Caesar, and Spinola. He has equalled the first — he 
" has surpassed the second." f Does not a simple narrative of 
the battle of Rocroy suffice to show that it was gained by skilful 
direction, and not by happy accident ? 

It would be difficult to describe with what transports of joy 
the news of this victory was received at the Court, which was 
far from firmly established. It was considered, and with reason, 
to be the greatest battle the French had gained since that of Bou- 
vines, four centuries before. Here then commenced that career 
of glory which distinguished the times of Louis XIV., and which 
ended only before the swords of Eugene and Marlborough ; and 
if it was with good reason that Louis XIV. assumed the sun 
as his device, Rocroy may be said to have been its dawn, as 
Blenheim was its setting. 

On the 20th of May, the day after this great battle, Enghien 
made his triumphal entry into Rocroy. He allowed his troops 
to repose for two days, and then it was towards Guise that he 
directed his steps. He soon heard that Don Francisco de 
Melo had taken shelter at Philippeville, that he was trying 

* Conversation at the Countess of Albany's — Courier's Works, vol. ii. 
p. 152, ed. 1828. 

f Memoirs of Retz, vol. i. p. 287, ed. 1817. 



24 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. i. 

to rally his cavalry, but that of all his infantry not above 
two thousand men remained to him, and they disarmed and 
nearly naked. No army any longer protected Flanders, and the 
youthful courage of Enghien already meditated its conquest. 
But the Court which had expected to sustain war in its own pro- 
vinces was not prepared to carry it into foreign countries. It 
became necessary to give up all idea of an invasion of Maritime 
Flanders and the siege of Dunkirk, with which Enghien had at 
first flattered himself. Then finding that the Spaniards had 
drawn off their troops from the fortifications on the Moselle, 
Enghien proposed to march thither, and take possession 
of them. He was still more animated to this undertaking 
in order to avenge a disgraceful defeat which the French army 
had sustained four years previously under the walls of Thionville. 
Although this project was very inferior to his first, its great- 
ness surprised the Council of Ministers : they at first refused their 
consent, but the Duke insisted — and what could they refuse to 
the victor of Kocroy ? 

Thionville was at that time considered to be one of the 
best fortresses in Europe. On arriving before its walls, after a 
seven days' march, Enghien hastened to send the Count de 
Grancey with a detachment of cavalry beyond the Moselle, to 
prevent the Spaniards from carrying succour into the town. 
Grancey acquitted himself but ill of this important commission. 
He was deceived by his spies, and allowed a reinforcement of two 
thousand men to enter. This disappointment greatly grieved 
the Prince, but did not discourage him. In spite of the frequent 
sallies of the besieged, he established his lines, erected bridges, 
raised redoubts, and opened a double line of trenches on the 
25th of June. 

The French were several times repulsed, but always rallied ; 
and everywhere the presence of Enghien either prevented or re- 
paired the disorder. A new accident r however, appeared likely 
to snatch from him the victory. Towards the end of July, after 
a great storm, the Moselle overflowed its banks, carried away the 
bridges, and separated all the quarters. The troops on the other 
side of the river must have been destroyed if General Beck, who 
was encamped under the walls of Luxembourg, had fallen sud- 
denly upon them ; but the heavy German was still deliberating, 



1643.] SIEGE OF THIONVILLE. 25 

when the activity of the young Prince had repaired the misfortune. 
The siege therefore went on, the attacks grew more and more 
frequent, and the obstinate resistance of the garrison obliged the 
French to have recourse to mines, which, by assiduous labour, they 
pushed forward under the interior of the town. Then Enghien, 
wishing to spare bloodshed, sent a flag of truce to the go- 
vernor, and allowed him with a safe-conduct to visit the state of 
the works. This visit convinced the Spaniards of the impossi- 
bility of defending themselves any longer ; but Enghien, touched 
by their valiant defence, granted them an honourable capitu- 
lation, and they evacuated the town on the 22nd of August. 
Thionville was then little more than a heap of ruins and ashes. 
During more than three weeks the Duke was obliged to employ 
the whole of his army and several thousand peasants from the 
neighbourhood in repairing the principal breaches. 

By this conquest Enghien soon became master of the whole 
course of the Moselle down to the gates of Treves. Sierch 
alone ventured to resist him, but was reduced in twenty-four 
hours. Then disposing his army in autumn quarters, he set off 
for Paris. The young conqueror was everywhere received with 
the warmest enthusiasm, and the Queen, in gratitude for his 
services, granted to him, soon after, the government of Cham- 
pagne, and the town of Stenay, which the Duke of Lorraine had 
just ceded to France. 

Hardly, however, had he arrived a fortnight ere the Queen's 
orders obliged him to depart again, and conduct a reinforcement 
to the army of Marechal de Guebriant, who was then encamped 
near Sarrebourg.* Enghien therefore joined him with five or 
six thousand soldiers and great convoys, and afterwards visited 
the fortified towns on the frontier, furnishing them with men 
and provisions, and thus terminating the most glorious campaign 
ever made by an officer of twenty-two. 

* Desormeaux, either by mistake or negligence, says Strasbourg, instead 
of Sarrebourg (vol. i. p. 136). On this point I have followed the Memoirs of 
Montglat (vol. ii. p. 107). 



26 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Duchess of Enghien is delivered of a Son — Enghien's Sister, the 
Duchess de Longueville — Her dissension with Madame de Montbazon — 
Enghien's Campaign in Germany — Three days' Battle of Fribourg— 
Campaign of 1645 — Battle of Nordlingen — Enghien's dangerous Illness — 
Campaign of Flanders in 1646 — Death of the Prince of Conde, and suc- 
cession of Enghien to that Title — Campaign of Catalonia in 1647 — Un- 
successful Siege of Lerida — Campaign of Flanders in 1648— Great Victory 
at Lens. 

On his arrival at Paris after the taking of Thionville, Enghien 
had found all his family rejoicing. His wife, the Duchess, had, 
on the 29th of July, given birth to a son, who received the name 
of Henry Julius, and the title of Duke d'Albret till the death of 
the Prince of Conde. Enghien embraced the child with tender- 
ness, but showed the coldest indifference towards his wife. He 
began to abandon himself to pleasures — not to say debaucheries — 
with as much ardour as he had shown in quest of glory. On the 
other hand, the forsaken Duchess received no consolation from 
the relatives of her husband : since the death of Cardinal Riche- 
lieu, they no longer had any motive for treating his niece with 
respect, and despising her birth, they delighted in putting slights 
upon her, and ill-treating her in every possible manner.* Not- 
withstanding this, her excellent conduct did not fail her : she felt 
great attachment and admiration for her husband, and carried 
her devotion to him so far as never to complain, rather prefer- 
ring to suffer in silence. 

Another event in the family, about which Enghien found his 
parents much occupied, was with regard to his sister. She had 
a year before married the Duke de Longueville. This nobleman 
was double her age, and not of an agreeable person ; but he was 
of high birth, a descendant of the famous Dunois, he had the 
government of Normandy, and great estates in that province ; 
and Harpagon's reason, " dowerless," f appeared to the old 

* Memoirs of Mademoiselle, vol. i. p. 57, ed. 1746. 
f Sans dot I See Act i. scene 7 of Moliere's admirable comedy L'Avare. 



1643.] THE DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 27 

Prince of Conde quite unanswerable. The beauty and grace 
of Madame de Longueville deserved, however, a better lot. 
According to the testimony of a lady of her time, " it was im- 
" possible to see her without loving her, and wishing to please 
" her. Her beauty nevertheless consisted more in her colouring 
" than in any great perfection of the features. Her eyes were 
u not large, but fine, soft, and bright, and their blue was beau- 
" tiful — it was like that of a turquoise. Poets could only com- 
" pare to lilies and roses the beautiful carnation of her com- 
" plexion ; and her fair and sunny hair, accompanying so many 
" other beauties, made her less resemble a woman than an angel, 
" according as our weak nature has pictured one to our minds."* 
Marrying against her inclination, and possessing so many 
charms, Madame de Longueville saw all the young noblemen of 
the Court at her feet. Their assiduities, which at first annoyed, 
soon began to flatter her ; and later she yielded to them. A 
few months sufficed to bring her to the second period, and she 
received without anger, but also without return, the attentions 
of the young Count de Coligny. Meanwhile a letter full of 
expressions of tenderness, and in the handwriting of a woman, 
was found one night at a party at the Duchess de Montbazon's. 
Madame de Montbazon, who was older and less esteemed, 
though nearly as handsome as Madame de Longueville, hated 
her cordially ; she forthwith decided that this note had been 
written by her rival, and that it had fallen from the pocket of 
Coligny, who had just gone out. This was a calumny, as every 
one afterwards acknowledged, when the real correspondents were 
discovered. -f But at the time the raillery of Madame de Mont- 
bazon was so public and so severe, that this frivolous adventure 
became an affair of state. The whole Court was divided between 
the rival beauties. Madame de Montbazon was supported by 
the Duke de Guise and all the House of Lorraine ; but her prin- 
cipal prop and stay was her lover the Duke de Beaufort, chief of 
a party then called Les Importans. On the other hand the 
House of Conde mustered its friends and servants. 

* Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, vol. i. p. 456, ed. 1723. 

f Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, vol. i. p. 184, note. She adds (p. 1 78), 
" Madame de Longueville enjoyed then a great reputation for virtue and 
" good conduct.'* 



28 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

The Duke d'Enghien, just returned from the army, and burning 
with anger, sent a challenge to the Duke de Beaufort. By the 
mediation of the Queen, this duel was happily prevented ; but not so 
a public encounter in the Place Royale* between Coligny and the 
Duke de Guise. They fought with swords and daggers, and it is 
said that the Duchess de Longueville, hidden behind a window, 
was a spectator of the conflict. She had the grief of seeing her 
champion overcome and disarmed, with a wound so dangerous 
that he died soon afterwards. 

The Duchess de Longueville, however, with the Princess her 
mother, threw themselves bathed in tears at the Queen's feet, 
demanding justice and reparation for Madame de Montbazon's 
outrage. The Queen, touched by their just resentment, took 
their part, and decided that Madame de Montbazon should give 
public satisfaction to Madame la Princesse. Cardinal Mazarin 
undertook to arrange in writing the words which should be ex- 
changed on this occasion. But this great diplomatist then found 
that it is often easier to adjust quarrels between two rival nations 
than between two angry women. " I was at Court that night," 
says Madame de Motteville, " and I remember that in my own 
" mind I wondered how great were the follies and vain occupa- 
" tions of this world. The Queen was in her closet, and with her 
" was Madame la Princesse, who, filled with emotion and anger, 
" turned this affair into a case of high treason. Madame de 
" Chevreuse (daughter-in-law of Madame de Montbazon) was 
" with Cardinal Mazarin arranging the harangue she was to 
" make. There was a parley of an hour on every word. The 
" Cardinal went first to one side, and then to another, to try and 
" accommodate their difference, as though the welfare of France 
" and his own in particular depended upon its arrangement ; I 
" never saw, to my mind, so great and complete a mummery." 

This great negotiation being at length completed, they pro- 
ceeded to the ceremony, which took place at the Hotel de Conde, 
in the presence of the whole Court. The two ladies had fastened 
to their fans the words settled by the Cardinal. Madame de 
Montbazon commenced by reading the following words : " Ma- 
" dam, I come here to assure you that I am quite innocent of the 

* The Place Royale was commenced in 1604, and finished in 1612. 
(Curiosites de Paris, vol. i. p. 326, ed. 1771.) 



1643.] COURT INTRIGUES. 29 

u wickedness of which I am accused. No person of honour would 

" pronounce such a calumny I entreat you to believe that I 

" shall never forget the respect which I owe to you, and the 
" opinion I hold of the virtue of Madame de Longueville." 

Here follows the answer agreed upon for the Princess of Conde, 
which she accordingly pronounced : — " Madam, I willingly be- 
" lieve the assurance which you give me, that you took no part in 
" the calumny which was published ; I owe that deference to 
u the commands of the Queen/'* 

It will readily be believed that such a scene could not produce 
a real reconciliation. Madame de Montbazon pronounced the 
words which were agreejd upon in a jeering and careless tone, 
while the features of the Princess bore a look of haughty con- 
tempt. The two ladies separated more enraged than ever. The 
Princess declared that she would go nowhere that she was likely 
to meet her enemy ; but this meeting having however taken 
place, by chance, some days after, she made a prodigious uproar. 
It became necessary that the Queen should make choice de- 
cisively once for all between the two parties. Mazarin's counsel 
turned the scale in favour of the House of Conde. The 
Duchesses of Montbazon and Chevreuse were banished from the 
Court and the capital. A like order was signified to the Duke de 
Guise, the Bishop of Beauvais, and several other noblemen of 
the same cabal. But a still more grievous fate awaited the Duke 
de Beaufort, to whom was attributed besides a project for 
assassinating the Prime Minister. He was arrested the same day 
at the Louvre, and taken to the Donjon of Yincennes, where he 
remained a prisoner during many long years. 

After this revolution at the palace all the Queen's favour and 
all the power of the State remained without division to Riche- 
lieu's old party, then led by his disciple Mazarin. We should 
not, however, attribute so great a change entirely to so frivolous 
an intrigue. The seed had long been sown, and Madame de 
Longueville's adventure only made it burst forth. The question 
was, whether the system of Richelieu was to be continued or 
abandoned — a system tending to diminish the influence of the 
nobles for the aggrandisement of the Crown. The question 

* These two speeches are reported by Mademoiselle in her Memoirs, 
(vol. L p, 86, ed. 1746.) 



30 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

was, according to the old expression of Louis XL, to put " la 
royaute hors de page" Besides, some new feelings had begun to 
arise in the heart of Anne of Austria. For several months she 
had been wearied by the boastings and embarrassed by the claims 
of her former friends. Already in her mind the new-born favour 
of Cardinal Mazarin was prevailing over the tried devotion of 
the Duke de Beaufort. In time Mazarin found means not only 
to gain her confidence, but also to touch her heart, and please her 
not only as a Queen, but as a woman ; and the sequel will show 
what lasting, despotic, and complete power he found means to 
establish over the widow and mother of his Kings. 

The campaign of 1644, however, was approaching, and 
Enghien eagerly solicited to be sent to Flanders, where the 
Spaniards had scarcely succeeded in gathering together an army 
since the disaster at Rocroy, and where consequently the most 
brilliant conquests might be expected. But Gaston Duke of 
Orleans, uncle to the young King, having put himself upon the 
ranks, obtained this command for himself. He was entirely 
wanting in talents as a general, and even in courage as a warrior ; 
and his exploits during this campaign were confined to the siege 
and taking of Gravelines. As for the Duke d'Enghjen, they gave 
him only a force of five or six thousand men, on the frontiers of 
Luxembourg. Notwithstanding these small numbers he was 
already thinking of the siege of Treves, when the reverses of 
the French army in Germany obliged him to march to, its 
assistance. But here we must retrace our steps a little. 

TheMarechal de Guebriant having died in November, 1643, 
from the effects of a wound, the command devolved upon the 
Marechal de Rantzau, a brave soldier, but a bad commander, and 
devoted to the pleasures of the table. Whilst he was quietly 
dining at Teutlingen, only four days after the death of Guebriant, 
the Generals of the enemy, the famous Count de Mercy and John 
of Werth, were preparing for him *another entertainment very 
hard of digestion : falling suddenly upon his army, they com- 
pletely routed it. Rantzau himself fell into the hands of the 
conquerors, together with all his general officers, his artillery, 
and his equipages. To repair this loss the Court hastened to 
send Turenne — a name fated to rival that of Conde, and to illus- 
trate that of France. Henri de la Tour d' Auvergne, Vicomte de 



1644.] JOINT COMMAND WITH TURENNE. 31 

Turenne, born ten years before the Duke d'Enghien, had therefore 
more experience, and as much courage and genius. It was 
the first time he had the command in chief, and he had to 
collect defeated and dispersed troops, without money and 
without arms.* Notwithstanding all his efforts he could not 
prevent the enemy from commencing the following campaign 
by the siege of Fribourg in Brisgau. Having only ten 
thousand men, and not being able to assist this fortress alone, 
he made the most earnest representations to the Court, and 
this latter sent orders to the Duke d'Enghien to join the army 
in Germany as quickly as possible and to take the com- 
mand as generalissimo. These orders found the Duke d'Enghien 
at Amblemont, near Mouzon. Without losing a moment he 
put his army in march, leaving all his equipages, and made 
so much haste that in thirteen days he was at Brisach. On 
his arrival he had the mortification of learning that Fribourg 
had already yielded after the weakest resistance. In his first trans- 
port of anger Enghien inveighed with fury against the cowardly 
governor, threatening to have him hanged ; but this untoward 
event did not prevent him from following out his plans. Followed 
only by the Marechal de Grammont he crossed the Rhine, to 
see Turenne, who was encamped opposite Fribourg and the 
army of the enemy. The two Generals held a council together. 
As we have already said, Turenne had ten thousand men ; 
Enghien having had a reinforcement, brought as many. They 
had before them only fifteen thousand Bavarians ; but those fifteen 
thousand were commanded by Mercy, and their position was 
nearly impregnable : a country covered with woods and rocks — 
a camp thick set with redoubts and chevaux-de-frise. Turenne, 
always courageous, but also always cold and calm, pointed out 
that it would be to the highest degree perilous to force them, 
and proposed to cut off their provisions. His opinion was 
shared by the Count d'Erlach and the Marechal de Grammont ; 
but Enghien, full of the recollections of Eocroy, was impatient 
of delay and determined to fight. He returned to make his 
armv cross the Rhine, whilst he was revolving in his mind the 
best plan of attack. His combinations were as skilful as they 
were bold. On the 3rd of August, at the dawn of day, he ordered 
* Ramsay's History of Turenne, vol. i., p. 110, ed. 1783. 



32 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

the Vicomte de Turenne to march by a ravine, from whence he 
would be able, after a long circuit, to take the Bavarians upon 
their flank, and find the weakest point of their position ; and 
calculating that Turenne would have arrived at 5 o'clock in the 
evening, he himself fell upon the front rank of the enemy at that 
hour. I will here borrow the pen of one of his descendants, whose 
exploits in the field of glory, even much more than his titles, 
marked him as the true blood of the Condes : — " The Duke 
" d'Enghien gave his orders : the troops immediately moved on, 
" climbed the mountain through the vines, under the fire of the 
" enemy, arrived at the abattis, attacked them, overcame them, 
" notwithstanding the greatest resistance, and forced the Bavarians 
" to retire into their last intrenchment. So many obstacles over- 
" come had exhausted the strength of the soldiers, and seemed to 
w have put a stop to their career. They remained immovable 
" under the fire of the enemy : their courage was far from yield- 
" ing the victory, but their reason well nigh despaired of it. The 
" Duke d'Enghien arrived with the Marechal de Grammont, and 
" perceiving the astonishment which had seized his troops, he does 
" not hesitate a moment in adopting the only means of bringing 
" back their confidence. He dismounts, places himself at the head 
" of the regiment of Conti, approaches the intrenchments, and 
" throws beyond them his Marshal's baton. This daring action 
" was the signal for victory. The ardour and anxiety to snatch 
" from the enemy this precious trophy, decided the soldiers to risk 
" a thousand deaths rather than desert a hero who would com- 
u mand none but a conquering army. All move on at the same 
" time : they attack, force the line, and the most vigorous resist- 
" ance at last gives way before the obstinacy of the French and 
" their chief."* 

On the other side Turenne was equally engaged with the 
enemy. The obstacles of the road which he had to traverse had 
prevented him from making the attack at the appointed hour, 
but no sooner had he arrived at the enemy's trenches than he 
knew how to retrieve lost time. The Bavarians had begun to 
give way before him when daylight forsook him ; the night was 

* Essay on the Life of the Great Conde, by Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde, 
p. 27, ed. 1807. See also Desormeaux's History, vol. i., p. 167. Thus to 
throw away one's General's staff proves how well it is deserved ! 



1644.] BATTLE OF FKIBOUKG. 33 

dark, the rain fell in torrents, and although he heard from the 
top of the mountain the trumpets and tymbals which Enghien 
caused to be sounded as a signal of his victory, neither of the 
French generals dared, for fear of a surprise in the dark, advance 
towards the other. Mercy took advantage of this interval to 
withdraw his troops, with a loss, it was said, of several thousand 
men. He did not, however, think of a flight : he took up his 
position a league beyond, on one of the heights of the Black 
Forest, and again began to intrench himself.* It was therefore 
necessary to prepare for a second battle. The French rested them- 
selves on the following day, but the sun had hardly risen on the 
5 th of August ere the Duke had arranged everything for the attack. 
"Wishing to reconnaitre the enemy from a nearer point, he went 
with Turenne to climb a neighbouring mountain, and forbade the 
officers to undertake anything in his absence. In spite of these 
orders, one of them, M. d'Espenan, caused a redoubt which he 
happened to meet on his march to be insulted. The soldiers fell 
upon each other ; other soldiers hastened to the scene, and the 
fight commenced. Hearing the noise, Enghien returned at full 
speed, but it was too late to prevent the fault : all that could be 
done was to support it. The battle continued throughout the 
whole day, with equal animosity on both sides. The firing be- 
came terrible, but the success remained uncertain ; and at night 
the Duke withdrew his troops, and made them re-enter his camp. 
Far from being discouraged, the young Prince thought only 
of a third attack, but it was necessary to give his army some 
repose. In the second conflict he had lost at least two thousand 
men, and the Bavarians not above half that number. For three 
days the French remained in the presence of the enemy in a 
camp covered with dead and dying. The compassionate heart of 
Turenne was touched by this sad spectacle, but a sally is attri- 
buted to Enghien which it is vainly attempted to excuse by 
urging his youth and the liveliness of his imagination. It must 
be owned that it appears unworthy of heroism, or even of hu- 
manity : — " One single night of Paris will suffice to repair our 
" loss of men ! " f 

** Ramsay's History of Turenne, vol. i., p. 122. 

j* Id tamen damni Enguianus elevans plures una node Parisiis generari 
cavillabatur (Puffendorf, Rerum Suecicarum, lib. xvi. c. 27). Some care- 
less historians have transposed this trait to the battle of Seneff. 

D 



34 LIFE OF CONDE [chap. ii. 

The Count de Mercy, however, weakened by two murderous 
conflicts, and foreseeing that sooner or later he should be obliged 
to yield, thought only of retreating with honour. Enghien, on 
his part, formed the design to cut off the Bavarians in their re- 
treat ; and for this purpose sent forward a detachment of eight 
hundred horse under M. de Rosen. Count de Mercy, watching 
his time, fell unawares and violently on Rosen ; but this officer 
received speedy succour from Enghien, and the Bavarian had 
no other resource than to continue a headlong retreat, leaving 
behind him his artillery and baggage. 

Such was the threefold battle of Fribourg — a battle ever 
worthy of remembrance for the torrents of blood which were 
shed and for the chivalrous valour which was displayed in it — a 
battle in which the glory was nearly equally balanced between 
the victorious and the vanquished generals ; but the one, full of 
experience, and grown grey in arms, was already renowned as 
the first captain in Europe, and the other was but a Prince of 
twenty-three. 

To besiege and retake Fribourg seemed the natural result of a 
victory gained under its walls ; but the Duke d'Enghien nourished 
greater views, and wishing to make himself master of the whole 
course of the Rhine, led his army to undertake the conquest of 
Philipsbourg. In spite of numberless obstacles, he forced this 
town to capitulate after eleven days of open trenches. Worms, 
Oppenheim, and Mayence threw open their gates to him after- 
wards. He then caused Landau to be besieged by the Vicomte 
de Turenne, but was himself in the lines at the moment when 
the garrison hoisted the flag of truce. From a well-placed deli- 
cacy, the Duke withdrew to leave the honour of signing the 
capitulation entirely to the chief who had directed the works. 

Returning to Paris at the end of this campaign, he gave him- 
self up with ardour to the pursuit of fresh amours. He fell 
passionately in love with Mademoiselle de Boutteville, of the House 
of Montmorency, and consequently a relation of the Princess of 
Conde ; but it so happened that one of the most intimate friends 
of the young Prince, the Duke de Chatillon sur Loing, was in 
love with the same person, and wished to marry her. Chatillon 
was brother of Coligny, who had fought the Duke de Guise. To 
disarm his formidable rival, he could think of no plan so good 



1645.] HIS AMOURS AT PARIS. 35 

as to call upon him and confide to him, as his friend, both his 
passion and his intentions. Accordingly, Enghien, touched by 
this candour, had the generosity to sacrifice his own love to that 
of his rival. He did more : he supplied Chatillon with the 
means of carrying off and marrying his mistress, and afterwards 
pacified the anger of Madame de Boutteville and the Princess of 
Conde ; and in spite of the attachment which he still felt, he 
was seen, till the death of the Duke de Chatillon, scrupulously 
to respect the ties which he himself had formed. 

Soon after, or perhaps at the same time, the young Prince be- 
came enamoured of Mademoiselle de Vigean. According to a lady 
of the Court — " I have more than once heard her mother, Madame 
" de Vigean, say that he had often told her that he would break 
" off his marriage (having married the Duchess d'Enghien, his 
" wife, by compulsion), so that he might espouse her daughter, 
" and that he had even taken some steps towards this end." * 
Mademoiselle (thus was called the daughter of the Duke of 
Orleans, and the heiress of the Duke de Montpensier) adds that 
" Monsieur le Due d'Enghien had already mentioned it to 
" Cardinal Mazarin."f But it seems that the secret having been 
revealed to the Prince of Conde, this latter burst into a rage 
against the two lovers, whose project he entirely disconcerted. I 
It is with regret that one sees the heart of a hero conceive a 
project no less unjust than it was cruel, the Duchess d'Enghien 
having been quite as much constrained in her marriage as he 
was, and having ever since conducted herself in a most irre- 
proachable manner. The Duke's judgment must have been 
warped by a most vehement passion ; and indeed it is said that 
when he was obliged to separate himself from Mademoiselle de 
Vigean for the campaign of 1645, he swooned away with grief. § 

This campaign of 1645 had commenced in Germany very in- 
auspiciously for France. Turenne — the great Turenne himself — 
generally so prudent and cautious, had yet allowed himself to be 
surprised by Mercy at Mariendal, and had been defeated, with 

* Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 301 

f Memoirs of Mademoiselle, vol. i., p. 112. 

% Desormeaux, History, vol. i., p. 434. He adds that the Princess of 
Conde entered very willingly into this scheme, from her former hatred 
towards Richelieu. 

§ Desormeaux, History, vol. i., p. 434. 

D 2 



36 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

the loss of half his army. Whilst he was falling back upon the 
Rhine, and trying to muster at Spires the wreck of his forces, 
Enghien is sent by the Court, and brings back victory. But how 
can I describe this new campaign in Suabia without seeming to 
borrow the events from the preceding one ? How can I interest 
the reader with such constant triumphs, which from their num- 
bers weary the attention, and from their brilliancy dazzle the 
sight ? Neither the eyes nor the minds of common men can 
bear too strong a light. Let us therefore pass lightly over the 
exploits of the Duke d' Enghien in this year. Let us not pause 
to detail either his skilful manoeuvres on the Rhine, or his daring 
march towards the Danube to the very walls of Donauwerth. 
Let us not seek to paint him while giving battle to Mercy on 
the plains of Nordlingen, and deciding that battle by the sudden 
inspirations of his genius. Let us pass in silence the prodigies 
of his valour, nor say that he saw nearly all his aides-de-camp 
fall at his feet, either dead or wounded ; that he himself had two 
horses killed under him, three wounded, a severe contusion in 
the thigh, a pistol-shot in his elbow, and more than twenty cuts 
and blows on his armour and his equipments. Feeble historian 
as I am, I sink beneath the weight of my hero's laurels ! * 

I will speak only of the result of this famous day. It cost 
four thousand men to France, and amongst them many officers 
of reputation ; but the enemy lost six thousand men killed or 
taken prisoners, nearly all their artillery, and forty standards. 
Amongst the dead was found their chief, the Count de Mercy, 
who had directed the battle like a great general, and had 
fought in it like a brave soldier. He was buried on the field of 
battle, and the following inscription was engraven on his tomb : — 
" Sta, viator ; heroem calcas." (Hold, passer-by ; you trample 
on a hero.) At the time, this inscription was much praised. In 
the following century it has been, on the contrary, severely criti- 
cised by the author of ' Emile :' — " Had I seen this epitaph on an 
" ancient monument, I should from the first have guessed it to be 
" modern. Instead of saying that a man was a hero, the ancients 
" would have recorded what he had done to make himself one. 

* On the battle of Nordlingen there is an interesting letter from Turenne 
to his sister, of the 8th of August, 1645, printed in the fourth volume of 
Ramsay's Memoirs. 



1645.] HIS ILLNESS AT HEILBRONN. 37 

" Our style of lapidary inscriptions, with its pride, boastings, and 

" braggings, is good only for puffing dwarfs Engraved 

" on marble at Thermopylae were read these words : — 

" ; Traveller, go tell at Sparta that we died here to obey her 
" sacred laws.' 

" It may readily be seen that this last was not composed by 
" our Academy of Inscriptions ! "* 

After the battle of Nordlingen, which was fought on the 3rd 
of August, Enghien undertook the siege of Heilbronn ; but he 
had hardly commenced the investment ere the fatigues of this 
campaign brought on a most dangerous illness. He had a brain 
fever, and for several days his life was despaired of. It was 
judged expedient to have him carried to the Rhine in a litter, 
with an escort of a thousand cavalry, commanded by the Marechal 
de Grammont. Notwithstanding his illness, it was necessary to 
make the convoy march day and night, to conceal him from the 
light troops of the enemy. Arriving in this manner at Philips- 
bourg, he found there several skilful physicians who had been 
sent to him from the Queen and the Prince his father. By their 
orders he was profusely bled ; and, thanks to this treatment, or 
perhaps still more to his youth, Enghien recovered by degrees. 
As soon as he was able to bear the movement of a carriage, he 
set off for Paris, where public rejoicings signalized his happy 
return. 

A singular effect, which was attributed to his illness, and to 
the great quantity of blood which he had lost, was the complete 
extinction of his attachment for Mademoiselle de Vigean. This 
lover, who was so devoted at his departure, saw4ier on his return 
with coldness and indifference. He took no pains to excuse himself 
for this complete change, or to prepare Mademoiselle de Yigean 
by degrees for it ; and this lady, whose feelings had been touched 
by so much previous attention, was so hurt by his indifference 
that she renounced the world for ever b^ taking the vows of a 

* Emile, book iv. I will only observe that the Greek epitaph, as given 
in the seventh book of Herodotus, is still more simple than was supposed 
by Rousseau, and does not contain the epithet of " sacred," 
XI feu/ 5 ayyeKKov AaKedaifioviois on rrjde 
KeifieOa rots fcea/ow prj/xacTL irziOofAei/oi. 
Rousseau, who did not know Greek, may have been led into this error by a 
Latin distich of Cicero (Tusculan. lib. i., c. 42). 



38 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

Carmelite nun in a convent at Paris. She was another La 
Valiere, with virtue to boot ! * 

In the campaign of 1646 it was Turenne who commanded on 
the Rhine, but the war had then begun to languish. They were 
already negotiating with success at Munster, where the Duke de 
Longueville had been sent as one of the plenipotentiaries from 
France. People already began to foresee that peace of West- 
phalia which was at last to give repose to Germany after thirty 
years of agitation. The hostilities with Spain, however, were 
pursued with more activity than ever. Cardinal Mazarin thought 
of sending the Duke d'Enghien with an army into Italy ; but this 
project did not, no one knew why, please Monsieur le Prince, 
and therefore it was abandoned. On the other hand, the weak- 
minded Gaston, Duke of Orleans, who persisted in waging war 
in spite of Mars, and negotiating in spite of Minerva, had once 
more obtained for himself the command in Flanders. Enghien 
ran the risk of remaining useless to his country during this year, 
until he offered the Government to serve under the orders of his 
cousin, the Duke of Orleans. This generous proposal was accepted, 
with joy, and with the expectation of new victories. Accordingly 
Enghien proposed several times to pass the Scheldt, pointing out 
the means of giving battle with advantage ; but such projects 
were not congenial to the timid Gaston. They were therefore 
obliged to limit themselves to the sieges of Courtray and Mardyck. 
The Spanish army had advanced with the design of attacking the 
French, but decamped in the night without a blow, and Enghien 
pursued it in its retreat. An officer whom he took prisoner 
himself told him, without recognising him, that the Spaniards 
had determined upon making their retreat as soon as they heard 
that it was the Duke d'Enghien who commanded the advanced 
guard. The Duke, put to the blush by this compliment, con- 
tinued his march without answering a word. Still less was he 
pleased by the praises of his friends if they in the least degene- 
rated into flattery. In the trenches before Mardyck he had his 
face burnt by the imprudence of one of his soldier's, who was 
passing close by him with a hat full of powder under his arm, 

* Memoirs of Mademoiselle, vol. i., p. 113, ed. 1746. She praises the good 
and discreet conduct which Mademoiselle de Vigean had maintained towards 
Monsieur le Due dEnghien. 



1646.] SIEGE OF MARDYCK. 39 

which was set on fire by his match, and the Gazette thought to 
do him honour by publishing that he had met with this accident 
by a shell from the enemy ; but Enghien, despising false glory as 
much as he sought for real, was the first to laugh at this device.* 

The Count de Bussy Rabutin, who gives us this trait, and who 
was then serving in the French army, adds a striking sketch of 
a sally attempted by the garrison of Mardyck, another day, upon 
the Duke d'Enghien's trenches. At the news of this attack, 
Enghien, who after his morning's work had gone to dine, assem- 
bled in all haste his best officers, threw himself upon the enemy, 
and put them to flight — he, still in his doublet, sword in hand. 
" No, never," exclaims Bussy, who met him in the midst of the 
firing, " never could the imagination of a painter succeed in re- 
" presenting Mars in the heat of a conflict with so much strength 
" and energy ! " The Duke was covered with sweat, dust, and 
smoke. His eyes flashed fire, and the arm in which he held his 
sword was steeped to the elbow in blood. " You are wounded, 
" Monseigneur ?" asked Bussy. " No, no," replied Enghien, 
"it is the blood of those rascals ! " He meant to speak of the 
enemy. 

After the taking of Mardyck the Duke of Orleans returned to 
the Court, leaving the command to the Duke d'Enghien. This 
latter signalised the change by an important undertaking which 
the Court had often meditated — never ventured upon — the siege 
of Dunkirk. After an obstinate defence, and a thousand diffi- 
culties overcome, the town was obliged to capitulate in the 
beginning of October ; and this conquest added still more to the 
renown of the young General. " I think," writes Yoiture to 
him, " that if you had undertaken it, you would catch the moon 
" with your teeth ! " t 

One of the Duke's principal officers in this siege was Gassion, 
the companion of his first victory. By the recommendation of 
Enghien he had been named a Marshal of France ; but this ho- 
nour, so rare at the age of thirty-four, completely turned his head. 
Several instances of vanity, of caballing, and of disobedience, very 
justly offended the Duke d'Enghien. At first he bore them with 
patience, but he soon began to comment upon them with anger. 

* Bussy Rabutin's Memoirs, vol. i. 
t Voiture's Letters, vol. i., p. 376, ed. 1709. 



40 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

" Remember," said he one day, " that when I give an order I 
" will be obeyed ; I will teach you to respect my orders like the 
" lowest soldier in the army !" On another occasion he allowed 
these expressions to escape him : — " A general of the stamp of 
" Gassion is but a jack in office ; he in vain pretends to set 
" up for a great captain ; he is only a hair-brained corporal, 
" whose services can easily be dispensed with.'' With time 
Enghien would, perhaps, have restored him to his friendship, but 
Gassion was killed in Flanders before the close of the following 
year. 

In this year's campaign in Italy the young Duke de Breze, only 
brother of the Duchess d'Enghien, was killed at the siege of 
Orbitello. He was not married: thus the duchy of Fronsac 
in Guienne, which Cardinal Richelieu had acquired for him, 
and which included the fine chateau of Coutras, became the pro- 
perty of his sister ; but several years later she generously relin- 
quished it in favour of her cousin, the Duke de Richelieu, as the 
head of her branch. Breze also held the appointment of High 
Admiral of France, which the Duke d'Enghien immediately asked 
for, as a kind of inheritance for himself. This demand was backed 
by the warmest entreaties of the Prince of Conde. Whilst Mon- 
sieur le Due wrote letters upon letters from the army, Monsieur le 
Prince tormented the Minister devive voix at Paris. It is not to 
be denied that the services of the young hero deserved a splendid 
recompense ; but on the other hand Mazarin contemplated, not 
without some alarm, the growing power of the House of Conde. 
He saw the father unite in his person the governments of Bur- 
gundy and Berry, together with the presidency of the Council of 
Regency, and the appointment of Grand Master, which gave him a 
certain authority over all the officers attached to the King's per- 
sonal service. He saw the son governor of Champagne, pos- 
sessor of the fortress of Stenay, and the idol of the army, as well 
as of all the young nobles, by the remembrance of his victories. 
Would it then be wise, by giving him besides the appointment of 
High Admiral, to make him equally powerful over the navy ? 
Moved by these considerations, the Cardinal evaded the request, 
but always with infinite protestations and extreme civility. He 
made Monsieur le Prince hope at least for something equivalent, 
and thought to soften the refusal by making the Queen retain the 



1546.] DEATH OF HIS FATHEE. 41 

office of High Admiral for herself, with the title of Superintendent 
of the Seas. Notwithstanding all these precautions, Monsieur 
le Prince expressed himself much irritated by the refusal. In his 
vexation he left the Court abruptly, and retired to his govern- 
ment of Burgundy ; and he wrote to his son, reminding him of a 
quarrel he (Enghien) had last year in a fete at Paris ; an officer of 
the Duke of Orleans having struck him in the face with a staff 
by mistake, and the Duke d'Enghien having instantly broken the 
staff in anger. This adventure, insignificant as it seems, had well 
nigh sown division in the Royal Family, and was made up by the 
mediation of Cardinal Mazarin. The Prince of Conde now re- 
called it to make his son feel that the appointment of High 
Admiral was of far greater importance, and much better deserved 
to become the apple of discord. The Princess of Conde still re- 
mained at Court, but in very bad humour. When people con- 
doled with her upon her son's wound before Mardyck, she 
replied bitterly — " I see that you are very sorry that he was 
" not wounded enough."* The attentions of Cardinal Mazarin, 
however, did at last succeed in appeasing, at least in appearance, 
the House of Conde. Monsieur le Prince returned to Paris to 
negotiate about the equivalent which he was led to hope for ; 
but during these transactions he fell ill, and died in three days, 
the 25th of December, 1646. Madame de Motteville assures 
us that " he ended his life as a good Christian and Catholic, for," 
she adds, " he gave his blessing to his children only on condition 
" that they should live in the Roman Catholic faith. "j*" Here is 
the sketch which the same Memoirs give of his personal appear- 
ance : — " Those who had seen him in his youth said that he had 
" been handsome ; but in his later years he was ugly and un- 
" cleanly, and there were few signs of his beauty. His eyes, 
" which were very large, were red. His beard was neglected, 
" and his hair was generally very greasy : he passed it behind his 
" ears, so that he was by no means fascinating to look at." In 
his character there were several good qualities. His spirit of 
order and his economy, w 7 hich, however, often degenerated into 
avarice, had repaired the fortunes of his family. I find in Sully's 
Memoirs, that in 1607 he was so poor that Henry IV. had to 

* Memoirs of Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 380, ed. 1723. 
|- lb., p. 406. 



42 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

furnish him with the means necessary for travelling in Italy.* 
At his death, on the contrary, it is said that he left a million of 
livres as the yearly income of his House. He had a quick and 
penetrating mind, great sagacity of judgment, and a long ex- 
perience of affairs ; but, according to the custom of his time, he 
thought too little of the good of the state, and a great deal too 
much of his own. His wife, not having lived very happily with 
him, was soon consoled at his loss. Madame de Rambouillet 
used to say that the Princess had never had but two happy days 
with Monsieur le Prince, which were, the day he married her, 
from the great rank he conferred on her — and that on which he 
died, from the liberty which she then recovered ! 

On the death of his father the Duke d'Enghien succeeded to the 
title of Prince of Conde, but in France he was always called 
" Monsieur le Prince" The Court granted him all the appoint- 
ments and governments which had been held by his father, but 
giving him to understand at the same time, that he was to 
consider these favours as the promised equivalent for the 
Duke de Breze's succession. The governments of Champagne 
and Brie, which he already possessed, were transferred to his 
brother the young Prince of Conti.'f' The new Prince of Conde, 
however, nourished still greater views. He asked permission to 
conduct an army into Franche-Comte at his own expense, to 
make the conquest of that province, and afterwards keep it for 
himself as an independent sovereignty. At first sight this pro- 
ject appeared advantageous to France, as it would dismember and 
weaken the rival monarchy of Spain ; but its tendency was no- 
thing less than a recommencement of the Dukes of Burgundy, 
and it was very prudently rejected by Mazarin.J The Prince, 
much irritated, threatened to withdraw what he called his friend- 
ship, that is his support, from the Minister. He had even then 
a powerful party at his orders, and might be considered as the 
real chief of the French aristocracy. The young nobles who 
had accompanied him to the wars, equally followed in his foot- 
steps at Court, and loved him, perhaps, still more on account of 

* Sully, vol. iii., p. 48, ed. 1747. 

f Memoirs of Montglat, vol. ii., p. 255. 

% Lenet acknowledges that this proposition was made, but assured Car- 
dinal Mazarin that the Prince's intendant spoke of it without his approbation 
—which is difficult to believe. (Memoirs, vol. i., p. 37, ed. 1729.) 



1647.] CAMPAIGN IN CATALONIA. 43 

his foibles and his amorous intrigues, which, by lowering his 
glory, made him approach nearer to themselves. To his parti- 
sans was then given the appellation of " petits maitres^ on ac- 
count of their haughty tone, in imitation of Conde — a nickname 
which has since changed its meaning to denote an affected care 
for dress. The change of this word indicates not unaptly that of 
manners between the reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XV. 

The first time that Conde appeared at the Council of Regency, 
it was to take the defence of a general less fortunate than him- 
self. The Count d'Harcourt, who commanded in Catalonia, had 
besieged Lerida for more than six months without success. The 
Marechal de la Mo the Houdancourt had already failed before that 
place under Cardinal Eichelieu, yet now they wished to make it 
a crime in Harcourt. Conde spoke loudly in his favour, saying, 
" that a captain, however great and valiant he might be, ought 
" not to be blamed for being sometimes unfortunate."* This 
indulgence was the more meritorious, as the Prince did not foresee 
that he should soon have occasion for it himself. That time, 
however, was not long in coming. The Prince of Conde ac- 
cepted the command in Catalonia, and prepared to go there in the 
very first days of spring. A lady of the Court relates that she 
met him in the Jardin de Renard a few days before his journey, 
and that she asked him if he was going away happy. He 
answered very seriously, " That depends entirely upon the state 
" of the mind ;" and though he did not further explain himself, 
she guessed that he left Paris with regret. He had indeed a 
new attachment in his heart for Mademoiselle de Toussy. 
Since his love for Mademoiselle de Vigean, he used to boast 
loudly of having no other passion than glory. He even indulged 
in bravadoes against gallantry, saying often that he renounced 
it, as he also did balls, and he entirely neglected his dress. 
Nevertheless he allowed himself to be touched by the charms 
of Mademoiselle de Toussy, who had, it was said, more beauty 
than sense ; but she had, however, enough of the latter to remain 
undazzled by this dangerous distinction, and to repulse this married 
lover. This new flame was soon extinguished in Conde's heart. f 

The Catalans, who had been for several years in a state of re- 

* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. i., p. 477. 
t lb., pp. 430, 432, ed. 1723. 



44 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

volt against the King of Spain, were overjoyed when they heard 
that a Prince of the Blood Royal of France was coming to place 
himself at their head. His public entry into Barcelona, at the 
end of April, was signalized by redoubled acclamations. But the 
Catalans, long accustomed to Spanish ostentation and phlegm, 
saw with surprise his black coat without ornament (for he was then 
wearing mourning for his father), his long and neglected locks, 
and his extreme youth ; and they said, grumbling, that the new 
chief sent them was a student instead of a general. Conde soon 
perceived that to gain over the minds of the people he must add 
tinsel to solid worth. With this view he gave a splendid tourna- 
ment on the mole of Barcelona, at which he himself and his prin- 
cipal officers appeared two and two, upon their finest horses, which 
were covered with housings embroidered in gold, and their riders 
the same. u By this means, " says Bussy Eabutin, who was present 7 
" he soon made the Catalans change their tone, and they then saw 
" in him a hero, which the black coat had hidden from them. ,, * 

More serious cares demanded the attention of Conde. He 
found his army almost entirely destitute of provisions, ammuni- 
tion, and equipments for the following campaign, and the Cata- 
lans, according to the praiseworthy custom of the Spaniards, 
talked a great deal of preparations, but made none. Up to this 
period Conde had always left such preparations to the care of his 
commissaries. The officers in those times took no part, either 
administrative or lucrative, in the equipment of the troops which 
they commanded. ' They by no means resembled those generals of 
another age, those chiefs, half robber and half hero, who flew inces- 
santly from peculation to victory, and from victory to peculation ! 

The distress of the Catalan army is attributed by some 
writers to the jealousy of the Minister towards Conde. It 
appears, however, more just to remember on this occasion the 
difficulties of transport, and the extreme poverty of the country. 
According to a saying of Henry IV., " Spain is a country which 
" it is impossible to conquer ; a little army is beaten there — and 
" a large one starved !" 

Conde hoped with great activity to repair all this. He had 
at first thought of the siege of Tarragona, and the Minister had 

* Memoirs of Bussy Kabutin, vol. i., p. 134, ed. 1711. 



1647.] SIEGE OF LERIDA. 45 

promised a large fleet to assist him ; but towards the end of April 
only a few decayed vessels had arrived. They manoeuvred so 
ill that Conde saw they must infallibly fall a prey to the enemy, 
and hastened to send them back again/ The Prince then turned 
his thoughts towards the siege of Lerida, being obliged to relin- 
quish that of Tarragona. 

The town of Lerida, formerly so celebrated under the name 
of Ilerda, still boasts of a victory gained by Caesar under its 
walls. It is seated on the river Segre, thirty leagues from Bar- 
celona, and possesses not only a thick wall, flanked by bastions, 
but also on a height a fine castle, which serves as its citadel. 
Philip IV. had confided the government of this place to Don 
George Britt — a Portuguese by birth, and an officer of un- 
doubted valour ; and its garrison consisted of four thousand men, 
inured rather than weakened by a six months' siege in the pre- 
ceding campaign. Conde, who had left Barcelona on the 8th of 
May, appeared before Lerida on the 12th, and established him- 
self in the old lines formerly occupied by Count d'Harcourt, 
which the indolence of the Spaniards had suffered to remain 
standing : he only constructed a few new forts, to render them 
more secure. He opened the trenches to the sound of violins, 
for which since he has been often accused of bravado, but other 
writers maintain that this was then a sort of custom in Spain.* 

The beginning of the siege appeared to fulfil Conde's expec- 
tations of success ; rapid progress was made : but the farther they 
advanced, the more obstacles they found. From day to day the 
rock became harder and more difficult to cut : it was split with 
extreme labour, and entirely resisted being blown up by gun- 
powder. By a still more unfortunate fatality, the Chevalier de 
la Valiere, whose advice and plans as an engineer they were 
following, was killed by a musket-shot in his head. The town, 
on its part, was defended in the true Spanish style, which in 
sieges is the highest praise; — like Numantia of yore — like Sara- 
gosa since. Don George Britt had at first distinguished himself 
by a courtly, though perhaps somewhat contemptuous politeness ; 
he took care every morning to send refreshments to the Prince of 

* Essay on the Great Conde, by Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde, p. 62. 
He adds candidly, — * Had even the siege been more fortunate, the violins 
" are de trop in his history, as they were de trop in the trenches." 



46 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

Conde, who on his part would not allow himself to be surpassed 
in generosity. Accordingly he sent back several of his prisoners 
without ransom, and loaded with presents ; and Britt hastened to 
follow his example. But this exchange of civilities, worthy of 
more chivalrous times, did not prevent frequent sallies and 
furious conflicts. The Spanish General several times succeeded 
in arresting the progress of the besiegers. Even when he had 
been severely wounded in the leg, he still continued to have 
himself carried in a chair to the ramparts and to the breach, 
encouraging his soldiers and directing their sallies. 

Conde multiplied himself, as it were, to triumph over an ad- 
versary who proved so worthy a rival. He seemed to have no other 
dwelling but the trenches. Sometimes himself taking a pickaxe 
to animate the workmen — more frequently sword in hand to fight 
with the enemy — alternately consulting the engineers — distribut- 
ing the posts — writing the despatches — one might have thought 
that several Condes were uniting their exertions. If he ever 
allowed himself any relaxation, it was to seek in the environs 
of Lerida some traces of the great feat of arms there achieved 
by his Roman predecessor. " I remember/' says Bossuet, 
" that he used to delight us by narrating how in Catalonia, in 
" those places where, by the advantage of the posts, Caesar com- 
" pelled five Roman legions and two experienced chiefs to lay 
" down their arms without fighting, he had himself reconnaitred 
" the rivers and mountains which were made use of in this great 
" exploit ; and never had Caesar's Commentaries been so learnedly 
" explained or by so worthy a master ! The captains of future 
" ages will pay him a similar honour."* 

The 6th of June was the day of a more furious conflict than 
any preceding one. The enemy, skilful in perceiving and 
prompt in seizing a favourable moment, fell on a sudden upon 
the French lines ; in a few minutes they had already succeeded 
in burning the faggots, spiking the cannon, ruining the works, and 
completely routing a regiment of Swiss, commanded by Romm, 
which guarded the trenches. Conde was the fourth man that 
rushed to the spot, supported by his faithful friends the Mare- 
chal de Grammont, the Comte de Marsin, and the Duke de Cha- 
tillon. He first forced the fugitives back to the trenches by the 
* Funeral Oration, p. lxxiv., ed. 1807, 



1647.] SIEGE OF LERIDA RAISED. 47 

blows of his sword ; then, in spite of the continual firing from 
the town, he regained all the posts, and released all the pri- 
soners, obliging the Spaniards to take refuge behind their walls : 
all this being done at the head of those very Swiss who but a 
little while before had appeared so panic-struck. Such is the 
force of example of a single man in war ! 

The siege, however, continued, but did not advance ; hardly 
any impression was made upon the rock. The great heat and 
fatigue had weakened the troops ; they began to desert in whole 
companies to the enemy. Besides, they were often in want of 
provisions and ammunition, which could only be brought with 
great labour from Barcelona on the backs of mules. Such 
was the state of things when they heard that the Spanish army 
having at last assembled at Fraga, and finding themselves superior 
in numbers to that of Conde, were moving on, with the intention 
of coming to fight him. It w r as therefore necessary to adopt 
some decided step — either take Lerida by assault, or abandon 
the siege. 

In these difficult circumstances Conde took no one's counsel 
but his own. His officers despairing of success, but less fear- 
ing their own ruin than his sallies of passion, maintained a sullen 
silence. They were persuaded that this young and haughty 
Prince, on whom, till now, Fortune had always smiled, would 
rather perish before the town and lose the last soldier of his 
army than yield. It was therefore with equal surprise and joy that 
they heard Conde announce to them his intention of retiring. 
Accordingly the following night, June the 17th, he made his 
army defile on the bridges of boats which he had established on 
the Segre, and bade adieu for ever to the fatal ramparts of Lerida. 

This check, which was the first the young conqueror had yet 
sustained, made a great impression, not only in France, but all over 
Europe, and somewhat diminished the previous idea formed of his 
wondrous talents. Not the smallest fault, however, can be found 
in his military tactics, nor the least negligence on his part, to draw 
upon himself this reverse. He was very sensitive upon it, although 
he attempted to joke on this subject with his principal officers. 
It is even said that he wrote some verses upon his own disgrace, 
probably to forestall those which he dreaded at Paris.* Conde 
* Desormeaux, Hist, vol. i., p. 464. 



48 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ii. 

flattered himself also that he should take his revenge this cam- 
paign by gaining a victory over the Spanish army; but the 
Marquis d'Ayetona, who commanded it, persisted in remaining 
intrenched under the guns of Lerida. It is said that the King 
of Spain never wrote at that time to his General without adding 
these words as a postscript : " Above all, take good care never 
" to engage in battle with that presumptuous youth/ 5 * Conde 
could only therefore take by assault the little town of Ager, 
after three days' siege. The Prince afterwards returned to 
Court, where he could not help reproaching the Minister for the 
negligence which he had shown as to sending him support in 
Spain. Mazarin humbly acknowledged his fault to him, and 
begged him to choose for himself which army he would command 
in the ensuing campaign. Conde chose the army in Flanders. 

Accordingly in the following month of May the Prince of 
Conde and his companions in arms were seen upon the banks of 
the Scheldt instead of those of the Segre. He had opposed to 
him the Archduke Leopold, with a Spanish army superior to his 
own ; nevertheless he succeeded in reducing the fortress of 
Ypres — a success, however, which was balanced by the surprise 
of Courtray by the Archduke. Courtray was then nearly stripped 
of troops, the Cardinal Mazarin having, without giving notice 
to Conde, sent orders to Count Palluau, the governor, to take a 
great part of the garrison to the siege of Ypres ; and this order 
caused the loss of his own town — a new example of the danger 
of a Minister directing the operations after he has appointed 
the generals ! How often at a later period has the Aulic Council 
caused the Austrian armies to be beaten ! 

Monsieur le Prince was absent from his army for four or five 
days in order to go to Paris and consult again with the Queen. 
In consequence of the dissensions which were now beginning to 
arise with the Parliament, the army was in an extreme state of 
destitution ; but Conde supplied some of his own money to its 
use. u So that the state only exists," said he, u I shall never 
" want for anything !"t 

Meanwhile the Archduke, whose army was daily receiving 
fresh reinforcements, attempted to penetrate into Picardy. Conde 

* Memoirs of Montglat, vol. ii. p. 253. 
t Memorable Actions, by Father Bergier. 



1648.] BATTLE OF LENS. 49 

followed him with fourteen thousand men and eighteen pieces of 
cannon, and found him intrenched before the town of Lens. 
He offered him battle in the plain ; but Leopold, though he had 
eighteen thousand soldiers under his command, seeing the con- 
queror of Eocroy before him, determined to remain within his 
lines. General Beck, who commanded under him, and who had 
already made trial of Conde's ardour and impetuosity, flattered 
himself that he should again see him despise the advantage of 
the ground, and attack his enemy at all risks. But Conde, far 
from entertaining so rash a design, thought only of drawing the 
enemy from their position. He found no other means than to 
leave his own with feigned disorder. At the dawn of the follow- 
ing day, therefore, the 20th of August, he began his march, con- 
ducting the rearguard himself, and from time to time casting an 
impatient glance towards Lens, from whence he hoped to see the 
Archduke move on. 

The Prince's manoeuvre had all the effect which he anticipated. 
General Beck thinking to profit by this retreat, came out of his 
lines, advanced into the plain, and darted upon the French with 
his Lorraine cavalry. He was soon supported by Leopold and 
the mass of the Spanish army. Then commenced the celebrated 
battle of Lens, one of the most glorious which the reign of Louis 
XIV. could boast. At first the enemy appeared to have the 
advantage, but everything soon yielded to the genius of Conde. 
The Spanish troops were not only defeated, but nearly destroyed ; 
the number of their killed was estimated at four thousand, and 
their prisoners at six thousand : the rest dispersed, and the Arch- 
duke found himself almost without an army. All the baggage, 
all the artillery, and nearly all the General officers fell into the 
Prince's hands. Amongst these latter was seen the brave 
General Beck, pierced with several wounds, and nearly broken- 
hearted at the distress of a defeat. He was conveyed to Arras, 
but death, whi(m he ardently prayed for, soon released him from 
his regrets and his sufferings.* 

Conde ran great risks in this battle, exposing himself every- 
where without any regard to his life. Two of his pages were 

* " He did nothing but swear during his imprisonment, until he died of 
" his wounds, without consenting to receive civilities from any body, not 
" even from the Prince of Conde, so violently enraged was he at the loss of 
" this battle." (Memoirs of Montglat, vol. ii., p. 279.) 

E 



50 LIFE OF CONDl [char ii. 

killed by his side. But a danger far more strange and singular 
awaited him after his victory, when the Prince and the Marechal 
de Grammont both pursuing the enemy — one on the right wing, 
the other at the head of the left — joined one another beyond the 
defile of Lens. " Still sword in hand the Prince came to the 
" Marshal to embrace and congratulate him upon what he had 
" done, but their two horses commenced a most furious fight 
" with each other, having previously been as gentle as mules, 
" and they nearly eat up one another, so that they made their 
" masters run risks even greater than those they had gone 
" through during the conflict !"* 

On the very day of the victory Conde despatched the Duke de 
Chatillon to announce it to the Court. The first words of the 
young King were, " Ah ! how sorry the Parliament will be at 
" this news !"f which clearly shows the kind of education he was 
receiving. Anne of Austria, more composed, had perhaps the 
same feelings, but avoided such expressions. According to the 
Cardinal de Eetz : — " Chatillon told me, a quarter of an hour 
" after he had left the Palais Royal, that Cardinal Mazarin 
" expressed much less joy at the victory, than grief that a part 
u of the Spanish army had escaped. You must remark, if you 
" please, that he was speaking to a man entirely devoted to 
" Monsieur le Prince, and that he was talking of one of the 
" greatest exploits that have ever been effected in war. I cannot 
" help telling you that the battle being nearly lost, Monsieur le 
" Prince retrieved and gained it by one single glance of that 
" eagle eye which you know him to possess — an eagle eye which 
" sees through everything in war, and is never dazzled there !"$ 

After such a victory as that of Lens, the invasion, and perhaps 

the conquest of Flanders might have been anticipated ; but the 

troubles in the capital, of which we shall have to speak in the 

next chapter, so entirely engrossed the Queen's attention, that 

she sent orders to the Prince to terminate quickly the campaign 

against the foreign enemy. Conde* therefore limited himself to 

the siege of the little town of Furnes, which he took without 

any difficulty, but where a shot fired from the garrison gave him 

a severe contusion in the thigh. 

* Memoirs of Marechal de Grammont vol. i., p. 292, ed. 1716. 

f Memoirs of Motteville, vol. ii. p. 238. 

% Memoirs of Ketz, vol. i., p. 154, ed. 1817. 



1648.] COMMENCEMENT OF THE FRONDE. 51 



CHAPTER III. 

Dissensions between the Court and the Parliament of Paris — Arrest of 
Blancmesnil and Broussel — Insurrection of the People — The Queen Regent 
yields — Conde arrives from Flanders — His Conferences with the Coad- 
jutor, afterwards Cardinal de Retz — The Queen Regent removes Louis 
XIV. from Paris — The War of the Fronde — Conduct of Conde in the 
Blockade of Paris — Defection of Turenne — Peace signed at Ruel. 

Till now we have seen Conde the brave defender of his country, 
the faithful subject of his King. The scene is now about to 
change : to foreign hostilities will now be added civil wars, and 
we shall often have occasion to represent our hero misled by 
his impetuosity, and the victim of his own passions rather 
than of his enemies. Let us show the justice of his first mo- 
tives, and acknowledge the force of the circumstances to which 
at last he yielded ; but do not let us attempt, like the crowd of 
panegyrists, to question eternal principles, in the hope of veiling 
the errors of a single man. 

For some time irritation had been growing between the Court 
of the Palais Koyal and the Parliament of Paris. It may be 
said that reason was almost entirely on the side of the latter. 
The taxes rendered necessary by war, and sometimes by prodi- 
gality, had been raised by the Royal Intendants in the provinces 
with all kinds of fraud, which doubled their weight, and with 
a harshness which caused them to be felt more severely. The 
rights of the magistracy were ill understood and little respected 
by a Spanish Queen and an Italian Minister. On the other 
hand, the example of revolt which England was then giving 
had fermented in everybody's head. 

The young men especially, and the common people, asked 
only to go forward — no matter where, no matter with whom. 
But the chiefs of the Parliament, full of real patriotism, were far 
from taking for their models the English members of parlia- 
ment, who at that moment were sending their King to trial ; and 

e2 



52 LIFE OF COND& [chap. hi. 

they repelled, as the greatest insult, even all comparison with 
them. When one reflects on the course, equally firm and mo- 
derate, which the Parliament of Paris always continued to 
pursue — when one contemplates that long and illustrious train 
of upright magistrates, from the Chancellor de l'Hopital to 
Lamoignon de Malesherbes — sometimes opposed to the King, 
and sometimes supporting the King— but ever, ever according 
to their duty, and at the post of danger — how base must be the 
mind which could deny them its admiration and respect ! 

There were, however, some other chiefs not included in the 
magistracy, who, less pure in their principles, sought to turn the 
public agitation to their own advantage. Foremost amongst 
these was the Duke de Beaufort. On the 1st of June in this 
year he had found means to gain over one of his guards at the 
Donjon of Vincennes, and to let himself down by a rope into 
one of the ditches, whilst fifty men on horseback, his friends or 
dependants, awaited him on the other side, and assisted him in 
climbing out. Since that time he sometimes remained carefully 
hidden, and sometimes appeared in public with a strong escort, 
but was always watching a good opportunity to put himself at the 
head of the common people of Paris, of whom he was the idol. 

Another popular chief, much more formidable from his talents, 
was Paul de Gondy, then Coadjutor of the Archbishop of Paris, 
and since more generally known under the name of Cardinal de 
Retz. He was born in 1613 : the younger son of a family ancient 
in Italy, and illustrious in France. Forced against his inclina- 
tion into Holy Orders, he had brought to them both the virtues 
and vices of the military profession — loose morals, frank manners, 
undaunted courage, and a devouring thirst for revolts and wars. 
One day, amidst the troubles which we shall have to describe, 
the people seeing a dagger peep from under his gown, could not 
help exclaiming, " There is the breviary of our Archbishop !" 
In truth, however, it might be alleged of him that he had 
taken a cut-throat for his model rather than a soldier. What 
can one say of a priest who thought it necessary to defend him- 
self, as though from the charge of weakness, because he had not 
carried into execution a project which he had previously formed, 
of assassinating Cardinal Richelieu ? * How reconcile such de- 
* Memoirs, vol. i., p. 34, ed. 1817. 






1648.] THE QUEEN AND CARDINAL MAZARIN. 53 

pravity of judgment with so much genius, and with that admir- 
able power of language which was remarked in his life, and 
which may still even now be admired in his Memoirs — a work 
whose style, ever lofty yet adorned, -often recalls the ancient 
writers, in whose study the author had been reared ? 

At the time of which we are speaking, Gondy, foreseeing the 
troubles, and hoping to play the first part in them, neglected no 
opportunity of establishing his influence amongst the people. He 
affected great piety, and thus attached the religious party to 
himself. He distributed immense sums to help the poor. The 
ladies of gallantry whose lover he was, became his political 
agents. An old and devout aunt, without being the least aware 
of it, was also made useful to the same ends : she went from place 
to place distributing alms amongst the common people ; and the 
good lady never failed to add, " Pray to God for my nephew ; 
" it is he whom He has thought fit to make His instrument for 
" this good deed !"* 

During this general fermentation amongst the people, the 
Queen on her part became more and more soured: " I am weary," 
exclaimed she, " of saying every day, We shall see what they will 
" do to-morrow If . . • Monsieur le Cardinal is a great deal too 
"good," she continued; "he will spoil everything by always 
" wishing to spare his enemies." Mazarin, with more wisdom, 
used to answer her, " You are brave, like a recruit who does 
" not know the danger !" The Minister, however, was seriously 
alarmed at the celebrated Decree of Union, by which it was 
ordered that the four Upper Companies should assemble in the 
Chamber of St. Louis and deliberate for the good of the State. 
But another Decree, which suppressed the Royal Intendants, 
touched the Court, according to Gondy's expression, " in the 
" very apple of the eye." The Queen tried alternately to inti- 
midate the Parliament by her threats and to bend it by her 
entreaties. The Duke of Orleans, sent by her Majesty, em- 
ployed all his eloquence, but in vain. A Court of Justice, held 
by the young King in person, prohibited the continuation of the 
assemblies ; but no notice was taken of the prohibition. 

In this state of things came the news of the battle of Lens. 

* De Retz, vol, i., p. 51, ed. 1817. 
f Memoirs of Motteville, vol. ii., p. 159, ed. 1723. 



54 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. hi. 

Anne of Austria, who already projected a great blow, was trans- 
ported with joy ; thinking that she could venture upon almost 
anything under cover of the laurels which Conde had gathered. 
A solemn Te Deum in honour of the victory was announced 
according to former usage, in Notre Dame ; the Parliament in 
a body was to be present, and the Queen judged the opportunity 
favourable to carry off several of their chiefs, particularly 
Councillor Broussel, a good old man of eighty years of age, of 
a very limited understanding, but of a most irreproachable life, 
equally esteemed by his colleagues and beloved by the people. 
Accordingly on that day, after the ceremony, M. de Comminges, 
officer of the guard, arrested the Councillor Broussel and the 
President Blancmesnil, and conducted them, the one to St. 
Germain, the other to Vincennes. There was great agitation 
amongst the populace : " They carry off our father !" repeated 
they with loud cries. Some stones were thrown, and some 
chains were stretched across the streets ; nevertheless towards 
night the mob dispersed by degrees. But during- the night the 
Coadjutor and the other ringleaders put everything in motion 
for a general and well-regulated insurrection. Before morning 
a hundred thousand men were under arms, and two thousand 
barricades were erected, whilst the windows of all the neigh- 
bouring houses were furnished with large paving-stones, ready 
to hurl down upon the King's troops if they advanced. The old 
swords of the League reappeared, and " I saw," says the Coad- 
jutor, " amongst others a lance dragged, rather than carried, by 
" a little boy of eight years old, which must assuredly have be- 
" longed to the former English wars."* The Marechal de la 
Meilleraie, at the head of some guards, was driven back to the 
Louvre; and the Chancellor Seguier, who went to carry the 
Queen's orders to the Parliament, narrowly escaped being cut to 
pieces : he succeeded with difficulty in taking refuge in the Hotel 
de Luynes, on the Quai des Augustins, where he hid himself in 
a cupboard. 

During this time the Parliament left the Palais de Justice in 

a body to demand of the Queen the liberty of the prisoners. It 

was an imposing sight to behold a hundred and sixty magistrates 

in their robes, walking two and two, the First President Mole at 

* Memoirs of Itetz, vol. i., p. 187, ed. 1817. 



1648.] THE FRONDE. 55 

their head, in the midst of a countless crowd, which divided before 
them, and saluted them with cries of " Vive le JRoi I et Vive le 
" Parlement J" Having arrived at the Palais Royal, the Queen 
received them with a severe countenance and a rough answer : 
" I am aware," said she, " that there is some noise in the town, 
u but that noise is not so great as people say. Under my mother- 
" in-law the Queen, Monsieur le Prince was arrested and con- 
" veyed to the Bastille, and the populace was not affected ; will 
" they do worse for a simple Councillor like Broussel ? But if 
" any harm comes of it, you, gentlemen of the Parliament, shall 
" answer for it with your heads, and those of your wives and 
" children !" After these words the Queen rushed back to her 
inner chamber, slamming the door after her with violence. 

Time passed, however, and the insurrection was increasing. 
The Princes, the Ministers, the courtiers, all united in trying to 
shake the determination of the Queen. The unfortunate wife of 
Charles I., then a refugee in France, was at that moment in the 
closet of Anne of Austria, and assured her that the troubles in 
England had never appeared so formidable in their commence- 
ment, nor the minds of men so heated and incensed. After 
several parleys, and with a deep sigh, the Queen at last yielded. 
Two letters patent were that day dispatched to Yincennes and to 
St. Germain, to set at liberty the prisoners, while a decree of the 
Parliament ordered the populace to return to their usual occu- 
pations. But the people obeyed only when they actually saw 
Broussel, u our father," return to the town ; then they hastened 
to loose the chains and pull down the barricades ; and a few 
hours after no trace remained of so alarming a tumult. 

Such was the first act of those troubles which were called 
" The War of the Fronde" (or the Sling), a singular name, 
which is explained by a jest of Bachaumont, and an allusion to 
the custom of some school-boys who fought one another with 
slings and stones in the ditches of Paris. 

But though the traces of the tumult had rapidly disappeared 
from the streets, they remained imprinted as with fire, and ever 
burning, in the bosom of the Queen. Haughty and intrepid, it 
was not fear that filled her mind, like the Duke of Orleans's, nor 
the hope of deceiving, like Cardinal Mazarin's. Her whole soul 
was given up to the thirst of vengeance. She first imprisoned 



56 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. hi. 

two of her former Ministers, Messieurs de Chateauneuf and de 
Chavigni, to whom she partly attributed what had just taken place. 
She sent a courier to the Prince of Conde, ordering him to termi- 
nate the campaign as quickly as possible, and hasten to come and 
support her with his counsels and his sword. Conde obeyed, 
though with regret, already foreseeing the disasters of a career 
where moderation is nearly impossible, and where even success 
becomes ruinous, from the spite and rancour which it raises. " I 
" arrived at Calais on the 8th of September," says Bussy Rabutin 
in his Memoirs ; " I found there the Prince wounded by a musket- 
" shot which he had received at the siege of Furnes ; he was re- 
" turning to Court by the King's order. ..... As I en- 

" tered his room he began to sing merrily, 

4 Oh la folle entreprise 

< Du Prince de Conde ! ' 

" which was an old song composed formerly upon the Prince his 
" father; and he afterwards made me tell him the details of all 
" the events at Paris." * 

On arriving in the capital Conde did not find the Court there. 
It had retired to Ruel, to the house which formerly belonged 
to Cardinal Richelieu, and since then to his niece the Duchess 
d'Aiguillon. Conde followed it thither, and arrived there the 
same day as the Coadjutor. Hoping still to preserve peace by 
moderation, he whispered in the prelate's ear as he passed, " I 
" shall be with you to-morrow at seven o'clock ; there will be 
" too many people at the Hfitel de Conde ! " Accordingly, the 
next morning they had a long conference in the Archbishop's 
garden. They agreed that Conde should attempt to accustom 
the Queen by degrees to listen to some truths to which she had 
always hitherto turned a deaf ear, and that on the other hand 
the Coadjutor should conduct Monsieur le Prince in the night, 
incognito, to Broussel and to another Councillor of the Parlia- 
ment named Longueil, to exhort them to moderation, and to 
assure them that in any emergency they should not be abandoned. 
In relating these details a long while afterwards, De Retz adds, 
" It is certain that in the agitation which then existed, there was 
" but this one remedy to re-establish affairs." f 

* Bussy Rabutin, vol. i., p. 164, ed. 1711. 
J Memoirs, vol. i., p. 212, ed. 1817. 



1648.] THE PARLIAMENT OF PARIS. 57 

But these wise measures were interrupted by the Prince's own 
impetuosity. The next day he was again at Ruel, where he saw 
some deputies from the Parliament arrive, to ask of the Queen 
the liberation of Chavigni and Chateauneuf. Anne of Austria 
replied haughtily, that she had caused those Ministers to be 
arrested for good and strong reasons, for which she was account- 
able only to God, and to the King her son, when he should be of 
an age to be able to judge of them. At this same interview the 
Duke of Orleans, the Prince of Conti, and the Duke de Longue- 
ville, took occasion to make a protestation of their attachment to 
the Queen, and even of their friendship for Mazarin. Then Mon- 
sieur le Prince, led on by the heat of the conversation, and thinking 
that he saw an attempt made against the Royal authority, pledged 
himself much more than he had intended. The deputies having 
invited him to come and take his place in Parliament, and assist 
them with his advice, he answered that he should take the Queen's 
orders upon that subject, and should act according to them on 
this as on every other occasion ; that he exhorted the Councillors 
to do the same, or they would be well punished for their disobe- 
dience ; that he would spill the very last drop of his blood in 
supporting the Queen's interest, and should never separate him- 
self from it, nor from the friendship which he had promised to 
Monsieur le Cardinal. 

His threatening tone did not alarm the Parliament, but taught 
them their danger. They received at the same time the news 
that four thousand Germans in the service of France, and under 
the orders of Monsieur d'Erlach, had passed the Somme, and were 
approaching Paris. Without hesitation the Parliament issued a 
decree, that the safety of the town should be provided for ; that 
the Prevot of the merchants should take measures for collecting 
wheat and other provisions ; and that on the very next day they 
should deliberate upon the execution of the decree of 1617. 
That decree had been issued on the occasion of the Marechal 
d'Ancre, and interdicted, under pain of death, that any foreigner 
should take part in the ministry. To revive it at this time was 
declaring war against Mazarin. 

This violence on the part of the Parliament deeply grieved 
the Prince of Conde, who on the other hand did not less deplore 
the despotism of the Court. In a second conference of three 



58 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. hi. 

hours which he had with the Coadjutor, he made use of these 
expressions : " Mazarin is not aware what he is doing, and he 
" would ruin the State if one did not take care. The Parliament 
" goes too fast ; you told me they would, and I see it. If they 
" had acted with caution, as we had concerted, we should settle 
" with them our affairs and those of the public. They are rushing 
" into the danger, and if I rushed in with them, I should perhaps 
" gain more by it than they can ; but my name is Louis de Bour- 
" bon, and I will not shake the Crown. Those devils of square- 
" caps — are they mad, that they would engage me either to make 
" a civil war, or strangle them, and put over their heads as well 
" as over mine that rascally Sicilian, who will ruin us all in the 
"end?"* 

Full of this idea of combining contrary interests, and regret- 
ting his passion of the previous evening in speaking to the de- 
puties, Conde returned that very day to Ruel. They were 
holding a council there, and the Queen insisted that the time 
was now at hand for overcoming the rebels by the force of arms. 
All eyes turned towards the Prince, as the only person who 
could carry into execution this Royal desire. Then Conde made 
some vague protestations of his zeal, but added that he could not 
promise to take a town like Paris with only the four thousand 
men commanded by Monsieur d'Erlach. Besides, the treaty of 
peace was on the eve of being concluded at Munster ; did not 
they run great risks of delaying the signature and losing the 
fruit of so many victories if a civil war were to break out ? For 
these reasons, he thought that an accommodation of affairs would 
be preferable, and he would readily employ himself in bringing 
it about, if the Queen commanded him. 

Without Conde's assistance nobody at Court ventured to think 
of a civil war. As he himself advised an adjustment, they were 
compelled to do what he wished. Anne of Austria, sullenly 
submissive, and postponing her vengeance with regret, but not 
relinquishing the hope of it, allowed the Prince to write on that 
very day to the Parliament, and propose a conference for peace.f 

Conferences accordingly took place at St. Germain, held on 
one side by the Prince of Conde and the Duke of Orleans, and 

* Memoirs of Retz, vol. i., p. 216, ed. 1817. 
f Lettre du Prince de Conde, le 23 Sept. 1648. 



1648.] THE PEESIDENT MATHIEU MOLE. 59 

on the other principally by the Presidents Mathieu Mole and 
Viole. The greatest difficulty which now remained was upon 
the subject of individual safety, the Parliament insisting at all 
events to put some restraint upon arbitrary arrests. As a step 
towards reconciliation the Chancellor came to announce that the 
Queen consented to the projected restraint so far as it applied to 
the officers of the Parliament and other judicial courts, reserv- 
ing only the exercise of her absolute authority in regard to 
Princes and the persons belonging to her Court who might incur 
her displeasure. But the President Mole nobly refused this ex- 
clusive privilege for himself and his colleagues. " It is not only 
" our own safety which we have in view," said he, " but the 
" public safety, and that of the Princes and nobles, as well as of 
" all the King's subjects, in order that neither one nor other shall 
" be imprisoned except by legal means." 

On another day the violence of Monsieur le Prince had well 
nigh embroiled everything. The President Viole having de- 
clared that he had orders from his Company to obtain, pre- 
viously (prealablement) to every other business, a security for 
those who were imprisoned, Conde took fire at this expression of 
" previously," of which he did not distinguish the real meaning. 
Bising with precipitation, he said, in a voice trembling with 
emotion, " Every one should weigh himself to know his own 
" worth: this ' previously* is not a suitable word in the mouth 
" of subjects addressing their masters; if it means that the 
" Queen will be compelled, against her inclination, to restore 
" M. de Chavigni to liberty, I shall know how to make the 
" Royal wish respected, as also the dignity of the Princes of the 
" Blood ! " In vain did the President Viole protest that this 
word " previously" implied only entreaties and humble supplica- 
tions. The Prince, without listening to his excuses, broke up 
the conference in anger, and went out, repeating several times 
with oaths the word which had offended him. * 

A little reflection, however, convinced the Prince of his own 
impetuosity upon this occasion, as upon his first answer at Kuel. 
No one had more interest than himself in this article of indi- 
vidual safety ; no one knew better that great merit is often de- 
nounced and punished at Court as the greatest of crimes. He 
* St. Aulaire, vol. i. p. 256. 



60 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap, hi, 

now therefore only opposed feebly, and as it were for form's 
sake, the demands of the deputies ; and the result of the nego- 
tiation crowned all their wishes. 

It was agreed between them, according to the articles deli- 
berated upon in the Chamber of St. Louis, that a quarter of the 
taxes should be remitted ; that the King should return to Paris ; 
that the prisoners should be restored to liberty ; that hencefor- 
ward no one should be arrested unless it were in the power of 
his legal judges to interrogate him within twenty -four hours. 

These articles, especially the latter, merit a comparison with 
the Bill called Habeas Corpus, which the English thirty years 
later wrested from the Royal authority. All honour is rightly 
due to that ancient Parliament of Paris, equally firm and en- 
lightened, the hope of the oppressed, the support at once of the 
liberties and laws, never staining itself by those frantic excesses 
which are seen in periods of excitement, nor yet by those per- 
sonal interests which rule over and disgrace more tranquil times. 
If the privileges which they so gloriously conquered and defended 
were only transitory — if the seed which they threw did not fall 
on good ground, or was soon choked by thorns — should we there- 
fore esteem them the less ? Let us acknowledge that in the Ha- 
beas Corpus Bill the English Parliament had more success and 
permanence, but not more wisdom and integrity ! 

These articles, drawn up in the form of a Royal Declaration, 
were carried by the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Conde* 
to the Queen. Bathed in tears, she affixed her signature to them 
on the 24th of October, the very same day that the peace with 
Germany was being signed at Munster. It was — or rather it 
ought to have been — a great day for France. 

A few days after, the Queen, taking back her son to Paris, 
according to the articles agreed upon, was received with cries 
of rejoicing, and many expressions of respect and gratitude. 
But so far from allowing herself to be softened and appeased, 
she thought only of renewing the struggle under better auspices. 
The peace with Germany and the army which Turenne was 
bringing back to the Rhine afforded the means, and she hoped, 
after a little while, to stir up discord between the Prince of 
Conde and the Parliament. She knew that the military habits 
of the young hero had inspired him with a great contempt for 



1648.] COUNCILLOR QUATRE-SOUS. 61 

all gentlemen of the long robe. She knew that his haughty 
spirit bowed unwillingly beneath the yoke of the law. u Wait," 
said Mazarin to her — " wait to see the effect which these tumul- 
" tuous assemblies will have upon the mind of Monsieur le 
" Prince when he has watched them more narrowly, and you 
" will by degrees prevail upon him to accept the command of 
" your army against the Parliament." 

The effects foreseen by this crafty Minister were not long in 
appearing. To see lawyers deliberating upon State affairs, and 
oppose even Princes of the Blood, appeared a most monstrous 
thing to the victor of Rocroy. The disgust which he soon con- 
ceived for the Parliament was skilfully fomented by the Queen's 
well-timed advances, and the pretended submission of the Car- 
dinal. To attach Conde still more to her, the Queen issued 
letters patent in the month of December, conferring upon Mon- 
sieur le Prince and his successors, with the most extended privi- 
leges, the town and dependencies of Clermont, in Lorraine.* 

The growing irritation of Conde against several members of 
the Parliament at last broke out on the 16th of December. A 
discussion having arisen on several infringements which were 
said to have been committed against the Declaration of the 24th 
of October, Monsieur le Prince, giving his opinion after the 
Duke of Orleans, spoke with great warmth in favour of the 
Ministers. The Councillor Quatre-Sous answered him, but 
Conde, being no longer master of his passion, interrupted 
Quatre-Sous with oaths, and with a movement of his hand 
which greatly resembled a threat. Conde often since declared 
that he had not the least idea of such a thing-f At the moment 
his friends in the Parliament hastened to protest that it was his 
usual gesture, and not a threat — to which Quatre-Sous answered 
with much insolence of manner, that if it was his usual gesture, 
it was a very unseemly gesture, and that he ought to correct 
himself of it. I The clamour increased, several Councillors 
quitted their places ; and if the dinner hour had not arrived, the 
breach would have widened still more. 

That same day, after noon, the Prince had a long conversation 

* Essai par Louis Joseph, Prince de Conde, p. 73. 

f Memoirs of Retz, vol. i., p. 229. ed. 1817. 

X Memoirs of Nemours, p. 228, ed. 1817. 



62 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap, iil, 

with the Coadjutor, who came to see him at the H6tel de Conde. 
4 1 found/' says Gondy, " that the disgust which I had already 
1 observed in his mind had turned to anger, and even to fury. 
c He told me, swearing, that it was impossible to bear any 
1 longer the insolence of those citizens who aimed at the Royal 
< authority ; that so long as he had thought that Mazarin was 
' their only aim, he had been with them ; that I had myself 
1 confessed to him more than twenty times that there were no 
6 certain measures to be taken with people who could not 
6 answer for themselves from one quarter of an hour to another, 
6 because they never can answer an instant for their Com- 
1 pany ; that he could not make up his mind to command an 
' army of madmen ; that he was a Prince of the Blood ; that 
he would not shake the State ; that if the Parliament had con- 
4 ducted itself in the manner which had been agreed upon, all 
1 might have been set right again, but acting as it did, it was 
6 going just the way to ruin itself!" 

The* Coadjutor replied to these reflections by a long and 
eloquent discourse, sparing no pains to draw Conde into his 
party. "But my speech," adds he, "did not persuade Mon- 
" sieur le Prince, who was already prepossessed against me ; he 
" answered my particular reasons only by general ones — a habit 
" which belongs to his character. Heroes have their defects, 
" and that of Monsieur le Prince was not having — with one of 
" the finest understandings in the world — any power of consis- 
" tently following out a subject. He said to me, two or three 
" times, angrily, that he would make the Parliament see, if they 
u continued to act as they had done, that they were not as 
" powerful as they imagined, and could soon be brought to their 
" senses." 

To gain still further lights as to the designs of the Court, 
Gondy told the Prince that Paris would be a morsel rather hard 
of digestion ; "to which he answered me angrily, 4 It will not 
" be taken like Dunkirk > by mines and attacks ; but if the bread 
" made at Gonesse was withheld from them even for a week' — 
• ; I caught at the hint immediately, and retorted that the enter- 
" prise of closing the entrance to the bread made at Gonesse 
" might probably present some difficulties. ' What difficulties V 
" replied he, bluntly ; ' will the townsmen make a sally to give 



1649.] HIS CONFERENCES WITH GONDY. 63 

" battle ?' — ' That battle would be a small matter, Sir, if there 
" was no one but themselves,' said I. — ' Who will be with them ? 
"retorted he; ' will you — you who are now speaking?' — 'It 
" would be a very bad sign,' answered I ; ' it would smell strongly 
" of the League.' He reflected a little, and then he said to me, 
" ' Do not let us jest : would you be mad enough to embark 
" with those people ?' 

u A little while after the Prince added these words : c If you 
" were to engage yourself in a bad affair, I should pity you ; 
" but I should not have any just ground of complaint against 
u you. Do not either complain of me, and do me the justice 
u to say what is really due to truth ; which is, that I promised 
" nothing to Longueil and Broussel which the Parliament has 
" not dispensed with my doing by its conduct.' " 

Such was the last conference between these two remarkable 
men, then friends, and well-wishers to each other, but on the 
eve of giving themselves up to two antagonist parties, for many 
long years fierce and unsparing enemies, but reunited at last 
under the shield of misfortune, and by the interests of common 
hatred. The details which have just been read deserve the 
more confidence, since they were dictated by Gondy himself, on 
his return, to his confidant Laigues, and later inserted by himself 
in his Memoirs.* 

It appears, however, that the project of intercepting the bread 
from Gonesse did not emanate from the Prince himself. He 
had proposed, on the contrary, to bring the army close to the 
capital, to join it with the young King, to take possession of 
the Arsenal, and to place the guns at the entrance of the prin- 
cipal streets. But M. Le Tellier, then secretary of state, having 
given it as his advice that Paris should be reduced by famine, 
this plan was preferred by Mazarin and by the Queen, and Conde* 
was obliged to conform to it. 

All the arrangements being made, the time chosen for the 
commencement of the enterprise was on Twelfth-Night, that 
is the 6th of January, 1649. During the evening the Queen 
talked of nothing but her devotions, saying that she would go 
and pass the next day at the " Val de Grace." f At night she 

* Memoirs of Ketz, vol. i., p. 243, ed. 1817. 
f Memoirs of Motteville, vol. ii., p. 447. 



64 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. hi. 

withdrew into her inner chamber as usual, went to bed, and dis- 
missed her women ; but rising again immediately, she went out 
with her two sons by a private door. In the court-yard she was 
joined by the Duke of Orleans and Mademoiselle, the Prince and 
Princess of Conde, the Princess Dowager, and the Prince of 
Conti ; in short, all the Princes and Princesses except the 
Duchess de Longueville, who excused herself upon the plea of 
being with child. The Royal Family being thus assembled in 
the street, set off together to St. Germain, where there had not 
been time to make any preparation for their reception, and they 
were compelled to make use of some coarse mattresses and some 
bundles of straw to lie upon.* 

The next day a letter from the Queen, addressed to the Prevot 
and Echevins of Paris, announced " that the King had deter- 
" mined, with great grief, to leave his good town, in order 
" that he might not remain exposed to the pernicious designs 
" of some of the officers of the Parliament, who had an under- 
" standing with the enemies of the State, and had gone so far 
" as to conspire for seizing his person." So evident a false- 
hood imposed on no one. The Parliament, justly irritated, took 
no notice of a second Lettre de Cachet exiling them to Montargis, 
but issued a decree that the Queen should be entreated by a 
deputation to make known the names of the calumniators of 
the Company, in order that they might be proceeded against 
according to the rigour of the laws. Accordingly some de- 
puties from the Parliament went that same day to St. Germain, 
but were very ill received by Anne of Austria ; and the Prince 
of Conde told them with great wrath that the House of Bourbon 
could do very well without the Companies. Then the Parliament, 
no longer keeping any bounds, issued a decree on the next day 
almost unanimously : " Whereas Cardinal Mazarin is notoriously 
" the author of the present evils, the Court declares him to be a 
" disturber of the public peace and an enemy of the King and 
" of the State, and enjoins him to withdraw from St. Germain 
" on this very day, from the kingdom within eight days, and after 
" the said time commands all the subjects of the King to treat 
" him as an outlaw." 

* In the Memoirs of Mademoiselle may be seen a most piteous account of 
the uncomfortable night she passed (vol. L, p. 207). 



1649.] HIS BROTHER THE PRINCE OF CONTI. 65 

Civil war was thus declared. The Parliament was not long 
in gaining some powerful aid which the prudence of the Coad- 
jutor had been preparing. As soon as Gondy despaired of making 
the Prince of Conde the chief of their party, he had turned 
towards his sister for the same object. But let us hear his own 
words: " I went by chance to see Madame de Longueville, 
" whom I saw very seldom, because I was a great friend of her 
" husband, who was not the person in all the Court the most in 

" favour with her I found her alone: she fell into conver- 

" sation upon public affairs, which were then the fashion ; she 

u appeared to me to be very angry with the Court I was 

" quite aware that Monsieur le Prince de Conti was entirely in her 
" hands. I well knew the weakness of the Prince of Conti ; he 
" was almost a child ; but that child was a Prince of the Blood. 
" I only wanted a name to animate what without one would be 

" a mere phantom All these ideas struck my imagination 

" at once As soon as I had opened to Madame de Longue- 

" ville the smallest glimmering of the part she might play in the 
14 state to which affairs were then tending, she entered into it 
" with more ecstasy of joy than I can express to you."* 

In consequence of this engagement, we have already seen 
under what pretext the Duchess de Longueville excused herself 
from following the Royal Family in its retreat to St. Germain. 
The Prince of Conti was, as it were, carried off by his brother ; 
but he had hardly arrived at St. Germain ere he planned his 
departure, and in fact soon found means to escape and return to 
Paris. Conti was an offset very little worthy of the ancient 
stem from which he sprung. He was deformed in figure, and 
had that malignity of temper — that pleasure in giving pain — 
which is not unfrequently to be found in the deformed. With 
time the defects of his mind became corrected or softened by a 
sincere devotion, but in his youth he had hardly any. He was, 
however, destined for the ecclesiastical profession, and the Prince 
of Conde had just been sustaining a dispute on his account with 
the Duke of Orleans for the nomination of France to the Car- 
dinal's hat ; the Duke asking it for his favourite, the Abbe de 
la Riviere, and the Prince wishing it for his brother. The alter- 

* Memoirs of Retz, vol. i., pp. 244, 247, ed. 1817. 

F 



66 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. hi. 

cation was terminated in favour of Conde, but became useless by 
Conti's refusal to take orders ; he viewed with envy the military 
fame of his elder brother, and thought that he had only to wish, 
to become his equal. 

Besides the Prince of Conti, the Duchess drew to the cause of 
the Parliament her husband, the Duke de Longueville, and her 
lover the Prince of Marsillac. This latter was eldest son of 
the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, and afterwards succeeded to that 
title : he is known as the author of ' Memoirs,' and celebrated 
as the author of ' Maxims.' The Dukes d'Elbeuf, de Beaufort, 
and de Bouillon, the Marechal de la Motte, and several other 
great nobles, but each of them from a different interest, embraced 
the same party. Out of respect to the Blood Royal, the Parlia- 
ment, after some debates between its generals, conferred the title 
of Generalissimo on the Prince of Conti. Every new defender 
of legal rights was hailed with acclamation. But the public 
enthusiasm was at its height when the Duchesses de Longueville 
and de Bouillon, both radiant with beauty, came to the Hotel de 
Ville, where they declared their intention of residing with their 
children, under the care of the townsmen, as hostages for the 
fidelity of their husbands to the service of the town. " Only 
" conceive," writes the Cardinal de Retz, " these two ladies 
" upon the steps of the Hotel de Ville, more beautiful because 
" they seemed to be carelessly dishevelled, though in truth they 
" were not ; each holding one of her children in her arms, and 
" each child no less lovely than its mother* The Greve was 
" filled with people, even to the roofs ; all the men were shouting 
" with joy, all the women melting to tears."* 

The guard of townsmen and the other troops who were at the 
orders of the Parliament were soon on foot and ready for the 
campaign. They adopted as their device upon their colours 

. QUAERIMUS REGEM NOSTRUM 

(we seek our King). The Bastille, where the Queen had left a 
garrison, was besieged and taken in a very few days. To defray 
the needful expenses the Parliament levied a tax of a hundred 
and fifty francs upon every house a porte-cochere, and of thirty 

* De Retz, vol. i„ p. 282, ed. 1817. 



1649.] CIVIL WAR AROUND Pi\RIS. 67 

francs upon every shop. Resolved to set the first example in 
itself, the Parliament generously taxed its own members at one 
million of livres—a, precedent not very frequently followed by 
any modern Chamber of Deputies ! 

The rage which we have seen that Conde willingly indulged, 
even in opposition to strictly legal resistance, will make us judge 
of his transports of fury when he heard of his brother's flight 
and his sister's declaration. He became so full of wrath that no 
one dared either to accost or speak to him. But his resentment 
having soon turned to raillery, he went and found a little hunch- 
back, had him clothed in a gilded coat, and presented him to the 
Queen with these w r ords : " Here, Madam, is the generalissimo 
" of Paris !"* 

In this frame of mind Conde's greatest wish was to make his 
family repent their desertion. But military means were wanting 
to him ; he had neither money nor stores ; he was now in the 
very heart of a severe winter ; and his army, for reducing an 
immense town, consisted only of eight thousand men. He had 
hoped for some reinforcements ; but the other Parliaments of the 
kingdom were already in movement to support that of Paris, and 
gave the King's troops employment in the provinces. The 
Prince, how r ever, accustomed to do great things with slender 
means, did not despair of success ; and he wrested from the Pa- 
risians several of their fortified posts — especially those of Corbeil, 
of St. Cloud, and of St. Denis. A more important affair took 
place at Charenton on the 8th of February. The post was com- 
manded for the Parliament by a brave officer named Clanleu ; 
the attack was confided by the Prince to his friend the Duke de 
Chatillon. After an obstinate conflict, and a vigorous defence, 
all the intrenchments were carried, and the Frondeurs were com- 
pelled to fall back towards Paris. Upwards of one hundred 
officers lost their lives on this day : on one side was killed the 
brave Clanleu, after having refused quarter ; on the other, Cha- 
tillon received a mortal wound. 

This young nobleman, w r ho was on the point of being named 
a Marshal of France, died on the following day, and Mon- 
sieur le Prince, who was sometimes accused of being little sus- 

* Memoirs of the Duchess de Nemours, p. 255, ed. 1817. 

f2 



C8 LIFE OF CONDiL [chap. hi. 

ceptible of friendship, showed true and bitter anguish at this 
loss : the hero was seen on this occasion to shed tears. Accord- 
ing to the memoirs of the times, the beautiful Duchess de Cha- 
tillon did not feel any great despair, " but counterfeited grief 
" after the manner of ladies who love themselves too well to care 
" much for any one else."* It must be acknowledged, however, 
that the Duchess had some reason for displeasure against her hus- 
band ; during some time past he had neglected her for Mademoi- 
selle de Guerchy, and even in this last skirmish had worn one 
of the garters of that lady tied round his arm.f 

Notwithstanding all his efforts, Conde did not succeed in com- 
pleting the blockade of Paris. His army was so small, that whilst 
he was lighting on one side, the convoys easily entered on the 
other ; and the best proof is, that during all this war the price 
of provisions rose very little in the markets of the town. But 
the chiefs of the Fronde took occasion of Conde's activity to dis- 
credit him at Paris ; they had even spread amongst their party 
the report that the Prince eat nothing but the ears of his prison- 
ers ! J — a calumny very well calculated for the minds of the com- 
mon people. Thus passed several weeks. During this time two 
great events were in preparation which appeared likely to en- 
sure the triumph of the Frond eurs-— these were the treachery of 
Turenne, and the entrance of the Archduke into France. 

The Vicomte de Turenne had commanded the army in Ger- 
many, and, since the peace, was conducting it home. Forgetting 
that he was an officer in the service of the Queen, and remem- 
bering only that he was brother of the Duke de Bouillon, he had 
contracted engagements with the latter, and promised to make 
his troops declare in favour of the Parliament. He wrote to 
him at this time that there were only two Colonels in his army 
who gave him any trouble, and that he felt sure of gaining them 
over, by some means or other, in a few days. The secret was at 
first confined to the Duke de Bouillon, the Duchess, and the 
Coadjutor. 

An alliance with Spain, as a new support to their party, was 
warmly pressed by the Duke d'Elbeuf and the Coadjutor. But 

* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. ii., p. 524. 

t Memoirs of Mademoiselle, vol. i., p. 212, ed. 1748. 

J Desormeaux, vol. ii-, p. 197. 



1649.] PUBLIC SPIRIT OF THE PARLIAMENT. 69 

, r 

amongst the magistrates, even those the most violent against the 
Court, French feeling was not in this manner cast aside. There 
is nothing more invariable or more remarkable in all the civil 
wars which we are about to describe than the facility with which, 
on the slightest temptation, the great noblemen turned towards 
an army of Spain or of any other foreign power, and the firmness 
with which, on the contrary, the Parliament even in the most 
pressing dangers rejected the idea of introducing enemies within 
the frontier of their fatherland. The Coadjutor having assembled 
at his house those magistrates of whom he felt the most secure, 
had scarcely let fall some obscure hints of a Spanish alliance ere 
the President de Nesmond asked angrily, how he ventured to 
send for members of the Parliament to make to them such a 
proposal ; and the President de Blancmesnil left the room say- 
ing that he did not wish for private conferences, which looked 
too much like faction and plotting. 

The conspirators, however (for may we not give that name to 
all who place their party before their country ?), did not lose 
courage. A Spanish monk, the agent of the Archduke, had just 
arrived at Paris provided with several signatures of his master 
on blank papers. The Coadjutor and the Duke de Bouillon 
undertook to present him to the Parliament as an ambassador. 
They equipped him in an officer's dress, gave him the title of 
Don Joseph Illescas, and by means of one of the blank signatures 
they fabricated for him his credentials. Being admitted before 
the Parliament after some debating, he addressed to them an 
artful discourse, protesting in his master's name that the Arch- 
duke renounced all ambitious views on the present occasion, 
and that he only entreated the Parliament to interpose for the 
conclusion of a general peace. But the upright magistrates, far 
from allowing themselves to be tempted by this bait, and thus 
infringing upon the Royal authority, immediately issued an una- 
nimous decree, that to the Archduke's propositions no answer 
should be returned, nor even any deliberation be held upon them 
till the Queen's pleasure had been learnt upon the subject. The 
Presidents Mole and De Mesmes were named deputies to carry 
this decree to the Queen, and entreat her at the same time to 
restore peace to her good town of Paris. 

It should be observed that this noble example of moderation 



70 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. hi. 

m 

and justice was given, not after any reverses, or in the midst of 
discouragement, but on the eve of great advantages, and when 
the party of the Parliament appeared to be prevailing, not only 
at Paris, but in nearly all the provinces. The Queen and the 
Prince of Conde were equally discouraged with their enter- 
prise ; and the Cardinal showed himself ready to swear to all 
the conditions asked — only reserving to himself the purpose of 
afterwards violating them on any more favourable occasion ! In 
this state of things they willingly consented to hold conferences, 
in order to terminate their differences amicably. These new 
conferences were held at Ruel : on one side the Princes of the 
Blood and the Ministers ; on the other, the Presidents Mole and 
De Mesmes. They agreed that during the negotiation the Royal 
troops should allow free entrance every day to a hundred mea- 
sures of corn. This condition was not, however, very well 
kept ; there were constant complaints of the insolence and ex- 
actions of the soldiery ; and Monsieur le Prince, being remon- 
strated with upon this subject, replied only : " I am not a 
" dealer in corn ; I do not understand anything of trade. I 
" undertook to let corn pass, but not to furnish any ; and the 
" gentlemen of the Parliament would easily be able to find some 
" if they would but pay for it." 

The Generals, that is to say, the noblemen of the party of the 
Fronde, viewed with grief these peaceful dispositions, and seeing 
that they could not draw the Parliament along with them to 
adopt their measures, took these measures without the Parlia- 
ment. They signed a treaty with Spain, sent the Marquis de 
Noirmoutier as their agent to the Low Countries, and did not 
rest till the Archduke had entered Champagne at the head of an 
army. On the other hand Turenne was no less hastening his 
measures, and sent a letter, through the Prince of Conti, to 
the Parliament, announcing that he was coming at the head of 
his troops " to offer himself to the Parliament for the King's 
" service." This latter phrase, very skilfully framed for the 
interest of the insurrection, appears to have been borrowed from 
the English Roundheads. 

This bad news arrived at Court on the 10th of March, and 
produced extreme consternation. It seemed likely to prolong 
and envenom the war : it became, on the contrary, the imme- 



1649.] PEACE SIGNED AT RUEL. 71 

diate cause of peace. The deputies at Ruel, seeing the enemies 
on the French territory, now thought only of saving the 
monarchy. In the middle of the following night the President 
de Mesines went himself to Cardinal Mazarin, and spoke to him 
as follows : " In the present state of affairs we have resolved 
" to run any personal risk ; we will sign a peace to save the state ; 
" we will sign it at this very moment, for the Parliament may 
" revoke our commissions to-morrow. "We risk everything : if 
u we are disavowed, they will shut the gates of Paris against us ; 
" they will bring us to trial ; they will treat us as traitors and 
" felons. It is for you to grant us such terms as may jus- 
'•' tify our proceedings. Your interest depends upon it, for if 
M the terms are reasonable, we shall be able to carry them against 
u the factious ; but make them such as you will, we will sign 
" them all. If we succeed, we have peace ; if we are disavowed, 
" the blame will fall upon us alone."* 

It may well be imagined with what joy the Cardinal received this 
unexpected assistance. But the generosity of the deputies failed 
in awakening his own. On the contrary, he profited by their zeal 
to impose upon them very unfavourable conditions. The peace 
was thus signed on the morning of the 11th of March, and the 
deputies returned to Paris. But this great town was already 
chafing at the first news of such a treaty : the Generals were 
in despair at seeing their private interests thus flung away, 
and the common people loudly called out treason ! It was only 
through an immense crowd, and in the midst of hootings and 
revilings, that the deputies succeeded in reaching the Palais 
de Justice on the 13th of March, the day fixed upon by their 
Company for receiving their report. The proces verbal of the 
conferences held at Ruel having been read by the First Presi- 
dent, the Prince of Conti began to speak, and with a tone of 
great affected moderation complained that the conditions had 
been signed without consulting the Generals. Violent clamours 
against the negotiation were already to be heard on all sides, 
when Mole, raising his voice high above the others, replied to the 
Prince: i; As we must now conceal nothing — it is you who are 
" the cause of this, Sir." The general surprise having caused 

* De Retz, vol. i., p. 426. 



72 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. hi. 

a profound silence, Mole continued with increasing warmth: 
" Whilst we were at Ruel you were treating with the enemies 
*' of France. You sent the Marquis de Noirmoutier to the Arch- 
" duke ; before Noirmoutier you sent Bretigny, a gentleman in 
" the service of your Highness. Your letters, which we have 
" read, invited the Archduke to invade us, and gave the kingdom 
" a prey to foreign powers. Therefore when you had joined 
" yourselves to the Parliament, and when you gave us such 
" associates, could we suffer such an indignity ?" 

Quite bewildered with such a storm, and a coward at heart, the 
Prince replied timidly, that he and his friends had not taken this 
step without the consent of some of their Company. " Name 
"them!" exclaimed Mole, once more, in a voice of thunder, 
u name them, and we will try them as criminals guilty of treason !" 

The Prince of Conti remained silent at this appeal, and all 
the members of the Parliament appeared to follow the impulse of 
their chief. But during this time a troop of ruffians, excited by 
the Generals, had broken down the barriers and had penetrated 
into the gallery. They were armed with daggers and pistols, 
and demanded with tremendous vociferations that they should 
have given up to them " the great beard " {la grande barbe), for 
it was thus that the populace designated Mole. From all sides 
was raised the cry of " No peace ! No Mazarin !" Some few 
voices were even heard to pronounce the word " Republic !" 

Even according to the testimony of his enemy the Cardinal 
de Retz, the First President " displayed the most extraordinary 
" intrepidity. Though he saw himself the object of the popular 
" fury, not a single movement of his countenance betrayed any- 
" thing but the most sturdy firmness and an almost supernatu- 
" ral presence of mind, which is something even more than 
" firmness.* . . . When some one proposed to him to escape 
" through lesgreffes, by which he could retire to his house without 
" being seen, he answered in these words, ' The Court never hides 
" itself.' " Accordingly he went out by the great staircase, pro- 
tected by his colleagues, and awing the populace by his own 
courage : thus, though he was threatened on all sides, he suc- 
ceeded in reaching home unhurt. 

* De Retz, vol. i., p. 445, ed. 1817. 



1649.] TURENNE ESCAPES TO HOLLAND. 73 

The deliberations having been renewed the next day, the 
populace seemed appeased, and the Parliament gave proofs, it 
appears to me, of consummate sagacity. While approving and 
sharing the patriotic zeal of its first magistrates, they made some 
changes in the treaty which the others had been obliged to con- 
clude so hastily. The second article, for example, forbade the 
Parliament to assemble for deliberation on public affairs all the 
rest of this year : that article was rejected with indignation. The 
twelfth article left to the King the power of borrowing any sum 
he might choose ; this article was rejected in the same manner. 
The Court, in its present state of distress, was too happy to accept 
the treaty even with these modifications : thus therefore in the 
final result, the conditions granted were in favour of the magis- 
tracy, since the important Declaration of the 24th of October was 
fully recognised and confirmed. A complete amnesty was 
granted to all the noblemen and gentlemen who had taken arms 
on the side of the Parliament. They gratified the Queen only in 
not following up the decree of the 8th of January against 
Cardinal Mazarin. 

Peace was thus restored to Paris, and was not long in being 
established all over the kingdom. The Archduke, who had 
already penetrated with his troops to the neighbourhood of 
Rheims, perceiving that he could no longer reckon upon the 
support of the factious, withdrew precipitately into Flanders. 
The fate of Turenne was still more mortifying: at the first 
news of his defection Cardinal Mazarin had sent eight hundred 
thousand livres to M. d'Erlach, the Lieutenant-General, to be 
distributed to the army, and had caused letters to be written by 
the Prince of Conde to all the Colonels. These measures had 
their due effect upon the troops of Turenne : at the very 
moment when the peace was being concluded, they turned 
against their General, to remain faithful to their Queen, and 
Turenne, on the point of being arrested, escaped with some few 
friends, first into Germany and afterwards into Holland. From 
his retreat he implored the protection of Conde, who willingly 
granted it to the former companion of his glory ; and being at 
that time all-powerful at Court, he not only succeeded in pro- 



74 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. hi. 

curing him his pardon, but afterwards gained for him several 
considerable favours.* 

After the signing of the peace, the Chateau of St. Germain 
became the resort of many Frondeurs ; the Duchess de Longue- 
ville, the Prince of Conti, and nearly all the other chiefs of the 
party, hastened to pay their respects to the Queen. She received 
every body without bitterness, some even with friendship ; and 
the Minister on his part affected much general good -will. But in 
spite of these popular appearances, Mazarin, a coward, if ever 
there was one, could not make up his mind to return so soon 
amongst the Parisians ; and under the pretext of superintending 
the war in Flanders, he removed the Court to Compiegne. To 
insult his timidity by the contrast, the Prince of Conde made his 
entry into Paris in broad daylight, and drove through the prin- 
cipal streets in his coach, attended only by two lackeys. The 
people were intimidated by his boldness, or touched by his con- 
fidence, and let him pass everywhere with respect. The Parlia- 
ment on its part showed him great consideration, sending him 
a deputation to thank him for the good offices which he had 
rendered to the Company during the war. 

* Desormeaux, vol. ii., p. 188. 



1649.] RECONCILIATION WITH HIS FAMILY. 75 



CHAPTER IV. 

Growing Irritation between Conde and the Court — Designs of Mazarin — 
His Combination with the Frondeurs — Arrest of Conde and his Brothers — 
They are sent to the Donjon de Vincennes — Adventures of the Duchess of 
Longueville in Normandy — She embarks for Holland — The Princess of 
Conde and the Princess Dowager at Chantilly — Their Alarms and 
Anxieties. 

One of the first effects of the peace between the parties was a 
reconciliation in the House of Conde. The Princess Dowager 
employed herself with zeal and success in re-establishing harmony 
between her children. Conde, who despised his brother too 
much to hate him, readily agreed to a reconciliation with him. 
As to his sister, he had always felt for her great affection and 
confidence, and she no less for him : these sentiments were re- 
vived at their very first interview at Ruel, and he not only gave 
her back his friendship, but began to enter into her views, and 
even to be guided by her counsels. 

The Prince's policy was to make Royalty powerful and re- 
spected, but not absolute. He said publicly that he had done 
what he ought in upholding Mazarin, because he had promised 
to do so ; but for the future, if things took a different line, he 
should not be bound by the past.* Upon the same principle 
he refused the command of the army in Flanders — foreseeing 
that any reverses would tarnish his own glory, and that suc- 
cesses would increase the power of the Minister. A prey to a 
thousand conflicting feelings, and discontented with everybody, 
and perhaps with himself, he took the resolution of retiring for 
several months to his government in Burgundy. 

On returning from Dijon in the month of August, the Prince 
found the Queen and the Cardinal at Compiegne, and very much 
dejected, Their general in Flanders, the Count d'Harcourt, 
had failed shamefully at the siege of Cambray, and the campaign 
was a failure. But Conde's generous nature often led him to 
* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iii., p. 124. 



76 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

assist the weak and throw his weight into the scale of the unfor- 
tunate. If he had shown any ill-humour at his departure, there 
were no traces of it on his return. u Madam," said he to the 
Queen on their first meeting, " your Majesty will not find me 
" changed ; I am neither a Frondeur nor a devotee, but always the 
" same" (this is the usual language of men who have undergone 
any alteration) ; " and always ready ," continued he, " to spill the 
" last drop of my blood in your Majesty's service !" He then 
pressed her to return to Paris with her Minister, answering for 
Mazarin's safety, at the risk of his own head.* It may well be 
imagined that the Queen hastened to take advantage of this 
generous offer. Their entry into Paris took place a few days 
after, the Prince in concert with his family having arranged 
everything for this object. Such was then the influence of the 
House of Conde, and such is always the instability of the people, 
that Mazarin was received by an immense crowd, not only 
without any hooting, but even with acclamations and applause. 
Conde was seated beside him, at the portiere of the Queen's 
coach, and listened with equal contempt to the cries of joy from 
the people, and to the Minister's protestations of friendship. t 

Soon after, on the day of St. Louis, the young King, hardly 
eleven years of age, made a brilliant cavalcade in the Rue St. 
Antoine ; and the Prevot of the Merchants announced a mag- 
nificent ball at the Hotel de Ville. The Queen wished to direct 
herself all the details of this fete. She first tried out of spite to 
exclude Madame de Longueville, foreseeing, no doubt, that such a 
blow would go straight to her heart ; but Conde interceded in 
her favour, and it became therefore necessary to submit and 
send her an invitation. Anne of Austria, however, did not 
even then give up her womanly design of revenge. Knowing 
that Madame de Longueville's complexion had lost its first 
bloom, the Queen ordered that the ball should take place, not 
in the evening, but in broad daylight, "much," added she, " as 
" it may vex certain painted ladies, who have been great Fron- 

* Desormeaux, vol. ii., p. 214. 

f " There was an extraordinary confusion amongst the people. I was 
" never more tired. It was extremely hot ; we were eight persons in the 
•' Queen's coach, and were from three o'clock in the afternoon to eight 
" o'clock at night in coming from Le Bourget to Paris, which is only two 
" short leagues." (Memoirs of Mademoiselle, vol i., p. 240, ed. 1746.) 



1649. J DISSENSION WITH THE COURT. 77 

" deuses, and who will gain nothing when seen by the light of 
" the sun !" 

Cares and anxieties soon succeeded to fetes and rejoicings. 
Mazarin had just concluded a marriage for one of his nieces, 
Mademoiselle de Mancini, with the Duke de Mercosur, eldest son 
of the Duke de Vendome ; but Monsieur le Prince declared that 
he would not allow this alliance of the Prime Minister with the 
House of Vendome, the old enemies of the House of Conde. 
The Duke de Longueville demanded the town of the Pont de 
FArche in Normandy, and Monsieur le Prince supported his 
pretensions. In vain did the Queen represent that the Duke 
de Longueville already held the government of the citadels of 
Dieppe, Caen, and Rouen, and that if that of the Pont de 
l'Arche was added, nothing would be wanting but the title of 
Duke of Normandy. " I should like better," said she with 
bitterness, " to give up one-third of the kingdom to the enemy, 
" than the Pont de TArche to the Governor of the province !" 
Without being moved by such expressions, Conde addressed the 
same request to the Prime Minister, and receiving another 
answer in the negative, he forgot himself so far as to touch 
him rather roughly with his hand under the chin, and exclaimed 
on leaving him with contempt, " Adieu, Mars !" It is even 
said that he sent him, a short time afterwards, a letter addressed 
" A V Illustrissimo Signor Faquino."* The Cardinal, less irri- 
tated than alarmed at these insults, sent M. Le Tellier, Secretary 
of State, to him on the following day, with conciliatory over- 
tures ; but the Prince, so far from allowing himself to be 
appeased, desired Le Tellier to inform the Cardinal that he 
wo aid never meet him again but at Council, and that he 
declared himself his open enemy. 

Attentive to all these changes, and foreseeing that discord 
amongst others would increase their own strength, the chiefs 
of the Frondeurs hastened in crowds to the Hotel de Conde to 
offer their services. The Coadjutor and the President de Bellievre 
especially pressed the Prince to place himself at the head of 
their part}-, to join his own to theirs, and to combine in shaking 
off the yoke of the foreign favourite. Such a combination could 
not have been for a moment withstood. The Cardinal seeing his 
* Memoirs of Guy Joly, p. 82, ed. 1817. 



LIFE OF CONDI5. [chap. iv. 



humblest submissions repulsed one after the other, was already- 
resigning himself to his disgrace, and was making preparations 
for his journey into Italy ; but Conde, brought up with a pro- 
found veneration for the throne, and on the other hand despising 
in his heart the gentlemen of the long robe, could not make up 
his mind to the proposed alliance. He began to lend an ear to 
the entreaties of the humbled Minister. " During three days,'' 
says his friend the Duke de Rohan, " he changed his mind three 
" hundred times !" The decisive moment having at length arrived, 
Gondy and Noirmoutier went to the Hotel de Conde on the 
18th of September* It was only four o'clock in the morning, 
and they found Monsieur le Prince still sound asleep. Having 
awakened him, they learnt with surprise from his own lips that 
he renounced the projects concerted between them, because he 
could not agree to a civil war; and that the Queen was so 
attached to the Cardinal that there was but that one method of 
separating them. He added that he had already accepted the 
Pont de T Arche for his brother-in-law, and that he restored his 
friendship to the Cardinal at that price; but that neverthe- 
less he promised his protection to both the Coadjutor and the 
President, if it should ever become necessary. Then taking 
leave of them, after a few other complimentary speeches, he 
dressed hastily, and proceeded to the Queen's levee.* 

On leaving the Court, where he had been taking his final 
measures, the Prince went to see the Duchess de Longueville, 
whom he found much hurt at not having been consulted on an 
affair of such importance. He found with her only Pierre Lenet, 
of whom we shall often have occasion to speak hereafter. He 
was a Councillor in the Parliament of Dijon, and one of the 
most devoted servants of the House of Conde. " Well, sister," 
said the Prince in a laughing and jesting tone, " Mazarin and I 
" are now become like two heads in one cap ! " " That is very 
" fine, brother," replied the Duchess in a more serious tone ; 
" but I pray to God that you may not lose at this game all your 
" friends and all your reputation, which the Abbe de la Riviere 
" and the Duke of Orleans will not bring back to you, and still 
" less the Cardinal and the Queen ! " + 

* Memoirs of Retz, vol. ii., p. 21, ed. 1817. 
t Memoirs of Lenet, vol. i., p. 24, ed. 1729. 



1649.] CARDINAL MAZARIN. 79 

It must be acknowledged that on this occasion the sister 
proved herself to be a more skilful politician than the brother. 
Instead of insulting and humbling the Prime Minister, it would 
have been better either to treat him frankly as a friend or at once 
to crush him ; but Conde, without the slightest caution, prescribed 
the hardest conditions, which were arranged in the form of a treaty 
by the Abbe de la Riviere, and were signed a few days later by 
the Prince, the Queen, and the Cardinal. This treaty imported that 
the Cardinal should break off the marriage of his niece with the 
Duke de Mercoeur ; that the post of High Admiral should remain 
vacant; that no considerable office should be granted without 
the approval of Monsieur le Prince; and that in the army 
especially he should have the right of choosing not only the 
generals, but even the lowest officers. 

Mazarin was like a reed which bows before the tempest, but 
rises again after it. All his life he preferred degradation to 
danger. He promised everything that was asked to escape pre- 
sent peril, but watched with care for an opportunity of overthrow- 
ing his terrible protector. The violence of Monsieur le Prince 
easily furnished weapons against himself. According to the 
memoirs of the time, " he liked better to gain battles than hearts ;" 
and the Duchess de Longueville was even less willing to conciliate 
than himself. " In affairs of consequence," says Madame de 
Nemours, " they took a pleasure in disobliging ; and in every-day 
" life they were so reckless that it was impossible to bear it ; 
" they had such a mocking tone, and said such harsh things, 
" that nobody could fail to be offended. In any visits which 
" were paid them they displayed a disdainful weariness, and 
" openly showed their ennui. Whatever was the rank of the 
" visitors, they had to wait a prodigious time in the antechamber 
" of Monsieur le Prince ; and very often, after having waited 
" so long, he sent every one away without seeing them." * 

I pass lightly over several errors committed really by the im- 
prudence of the Prince, but exaggerated still farther by the 
artifices of the Cardinal. The Parliament of Aix having sent 
deputies to complain against the Count d'Alais, governor of Pro- 
vence, Conde threatened to " cane them to death " if they con- 
tinued to cry down M. d'Alais ; and he turned them out igno- 
* Memoirs of Nemours, p. 276, ed. 1817. 



80 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 



miniously from the council-room. The Prince of Marsillac 
asked the privilege then called " le tabouret" for his wife, when 
with the Queen, and the right of entering the court of the Louvre 
in his coach, and Conde supported his petition. In vain did the 
most trusty servants of the House of Conde represent to him " that 
" for a friend of his sister, who was by no means always his, it 
" was not wise to draw upon himself the hatred of so many of the 
" nobles ;" for in fact the other nobles, great and little, were all 
much concerned at this new pretension. There was a general 
and furious exasperation ; assemblies of the nobility were held ; 
even civil war was considered preferable to such a breach of 
etiquette. The Prince of Conde persisted for a long time, 
chafing at the resistance which he encountered, and threatening 
with his anger all those who should oppose his will ; but he was 
at length obliged to yield to the torrent. 

Another affair at Court very justly offended the Queen: The 
young Duke de Richelieu, heir of the late Cardinal, was under 
the guardianship of his aunt, the Duchess d'Aiguillon, who 
intended as his bride Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, one of the first 
matches at the Court ; but a growing inclination turned Riche- 
lieu himself towards a young widow without fortune, Madame 
de Pons, sister of that Mademoiselle de Vigean whom Conde had 
once loved so tenderly. Without the Queen's knowledge, or rather 
in spite of her authority, Conde one day conducted the young 
Duke to Trie, a chateau belonging to Madame de Longueville, 
where he authorised by his presence the marriage with Madame 
de Pons. He did more : he advised the newly-married couple to 
set off immediately and seize Havre, of which Richelieu held the 
title of governor, but where Madame d'Aiguillon commanded 
until he had attained his majority. The Queen, informed of 
this in time, sent in all haste M. de Bar, a harsh man, but de- 
voted to her interests, to retain the place in her obedience. On 
his side, Monsieur le Prince despatched another courier with 
orders to throw into the sea, with a stone about his neck, any 
one who should present himself on the part of the Queen. After 
having given these orders, Conde reappeared at the Court as 
though nothing had happened. He went to see the Queen with 
an unchanged countenance, and related to her the details of the 
wedding with much gaiety and unconcern.* 

* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iii., p. 343. 



1649.] PEETENDED ATTEMPT AT ASSASSINATION. 81 

But whatever resentment Anne of Austria may have shown 
in this affair, it was slight when compared to her feelings at the 
adventure of M. de Jarze. Wishing to supplant Cardinal Mazarin, 
Conde had encouraged Jarze to make a declaration of love to 
the Queen, who repulsed him with contempt ; but Conde taking 
his defence, insisted upon Jarze's being permitted to make his 
appearance at Court, and threatened that if this was not done he 
should take him into his own service, and would bring him every 
day, " by his fist" he said, to the Palais Royal;* yet, as the 
ladies of the Court observed, reasonably enough, " There is no 
" private gentlewoman even, to whom, in an affair of this nature, 
" one ought not to leave full liberty to act as she pleases." f 

About the same time a quarrel broke forth between the Prince 
and the Frondeurs, produced by a concourse of singular acci- 
dents in which the caprice of fortune strangely seconded the craft 
of Mazarin. Some of the chiefs of the Fronde still wishing to cause 
an insurrection amongst the Parisians, devised a plan that a pistol- 
shot should be fired at one of the Syndics, in order to give credit 
to the report that the Court intended to assassinate the defenders 
of the people. Joly, a Councillor at the Chatelet and a Syndic, 
offered to be the instrument of this singular imposture, to bear 
the brunt of the pistol-shot, and to show afterwards a slight 
wound made beforehand. Accordingly this scene took place at 
seven o'clock in the morning in the Rue des Bernardins, but did 
not produce the desired result, because all reflecting men at once 
suspected that the attempt at assassination was not real. This 
manoeuvre, however, enabled Mazarin to make Conde believe 
that it was against his Highness the design had been formed, 
and that another ambush was prepared for that same night on 
the Pont Neuf, where the Prince was to pass in his carriage. 
Conde proposed to go himself to see how the case really stood, 
but the Minister pretending great zeal for a life so precious to 
the State, at last obtained that the Prince's carriage should go 
without him, but with the blinds drawn to disguise his absence. 
On arriving at the Pont Neuf, the Marquis de la Boullaye, 
an adventurer in the secret pay of Mazarin, was found there, 
with three or four men under his orders. According to their 

* Memoirs of Lenet, vol. i., p. 288. 
f Memoirs of Motteville, vol. hi., p. 318. 



82 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

secret instructions they fired at the carriage the moment it ap- 
peared, and severely wounded one of the lackeys. Thus the 
event appeared to confirm Mazarin's story, and Conde no longer 
doubted that the chiefs of the Fronde had formed a design 
against his life. La Boullaye had taken to flight after the attack, 
and Lenet advised Monsieur le Prince to pursue, at law, this man 
only, unless in his confession when caught any circumstances 
were found to implicate the Coadjutor and the Duke de Beaufort ;* 
but Conde, impelled by his fiery temper, and despising La Boul- 
laye as an adversary, made a complaint to the Parliament against 
the Coadjutor, the Duke de Beaufort, and the Councillor Broussel, 
as authors of this attempt against his life. Mazarin neglected 
nothing which could keep up the Prince's false impression, and 
promised him from day to day to bring new testimonies and 
conclusive proofs against the accused. 

Thus it was that the same resentment against Monsieur le Prince 
drew together and united two parties which only a few months 
previously were warring furiously against each other — the Court 
and the Fronde. Anne of Austria first opened this negotiation 
by a note to the Coadjutor, who came several times disguised 
as an officer, during the night, to hold conferences with the 
Queen and the Cardinal. Their common hatred served as a foun- 
dation to their new friendship. They soon agreed to strike a 
great blow by arresting the Prince of Conde at the Palais Royal, 
and at the same time to crush his party by seizing the Prince of 
Conti, the Duke de Longueville, the Duke de Bouillon, the Prince 
of Marsillac, and the Viscount de Turenne. Mazarin promised 
several places and a great deal of money, and at this price Gondy 
undertook to answer for all the principal nobles of the Fronde. 
Similar offers would not have succeeded in gaining over the chiefs 
of the Parliament, who could make use of the decree of the public 
safety in favour of the imprisoned Princes ; but it was known 
that they were violently irritated against Conde, and they made 
the Queen give her word that in future she should no longer 
dispute the political authority of the Companies, and that the 
principal affairs of the State should be referred to their delibera- 
tion. Notwithstanding the secrecy of this negotiation, and the 
small number of negotiators, the Prince received several warnings 
* Memoirs of Lenet, vol. i., p. 72, ed. 1729. 



1650.] MAZARIN'S DUPLICITY. 83 

upon it. He wished to assure himself of the truth. One day at 
the Palais Royal, fixing his eagle eye upon the Cardinal, he 
asked him suddenly if it was true that he received nocturnal visits 
from the Coadjutor disguised. But Mazarin, who was reckoned, 
as he deserved to be, the most crafty dissembler of his time, bore, 
without being troubled, the piercing look of the Prince, and dis- 
pelled his distrust by the frank and cheerful tone of his answer. 
" A pretty figure," said he, laughing, " the Coadjutor would be, 
" with white plumes and his crooked legs, in the dress of a cava- 
" lier ! If he comes thus to visit me, I promise to inform your 
" Highness, so that your Highness also may have the pleasure of 
" seeing him !"* 

Everything being, however, prepared, the execution of the de- 
sign was fixed for Monday the 18th of January, 1650. That very 
morning the Prince was on the point of discovering the plot ; 
for entering, without being announced or expected, the Cardinal's 
sitting-room, he found him with M. de Lyonne, his secretary, 
who was at that very moment drawing up the orders relative to 
his arrest. Lyonne had scarcely time to hide these papers in all 
haste under some others which lay before him. The Cardinal, 
on the contrary, far from being at all disconcerted, announced in 
a joyous tone to Conde, that they had just discovered the retreat 
of a certain Parrain Descoutures, who had been concerned in the 
plot against the Prince's person on the Pont Neuf, and who was 
acquainted with all the secrets of the Fronde. On giving the 
address of this man to Conde, Mazarin added, that he had re- 
ceived certain intimation that the Duke de Beaufort was making 
preparations for rescuing him from the hands of justice, and that 
consequently he entreated his Highness to have him safely es- 
corted to prison by a body of the troops under his orders. Conde 
replied, that he did not wish to be accused of persecuting his 
enemies, and that therefore he preferred that Descoutures should 
be arrested by other troops than his own. Pretending to yield 
to these honourable scruples, Mazarin pressed the Prince, how- 
ever, to point out the precautionary measures which would be 
necessary ; and accordingly the Prince set about arranging the 
posts, and writing the orders to the Queen's light cavalry to con- 

* Memoirs of Nemours, p. 248, ed. 1817. 

q2 



84 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

duct that same night a prisoner to the Castle of Vincennes. He 
little thought that this prisoner was to be himself ! It was thus 
that, by a refinement of perfidious raillery, of which few other ex- 
amples are to be found in history, Mazarin found means of making 
Conde give the orders for his own imprisonment. 

On taking leave of the Cardinal, the Prince promised him to 
return in the afternoon with his brother and his brother-in-law, 
as several affairs which nearly concerned them were to be 
discussed at the Council. From the Palais Royal he went to 
dine with his mother, who took occasion to blame him for 
the entire confidence he placed in the Court. " Believe me," 
added she, " I know the Court from my own experience." — 
" What have I to fear?" said the Prince; " the Queen never 
" treated me so well ; the Cardinal is my friend." — " I doubt 
" it," interrupted Madame la Princesse. — " You are wrong, 
" Madam, for I can reckon upon him as much as I could upon 
" yourself." The Princess ended the conversation with these 
words — " God grant, my son, that you may not be mistaken V 
and on seeing the Prince set out to return to the Court, she re- 
solved to follow him thither and speak to the Queen. 

An old friendship united these two Princesses ; they had un- 
dergone together the first persecutions of Richelieu, and Madame 
de Conde had more than once braved the Minister's anger to do 
the Queen service. She thought that she still retained a place 
in her heart, or at least a claim to her gratitude ; and if any 
danger did really threaten her children, she hoped to read some 
warning of it in the countenance of her former friend. Having 
arrived at the Palais Royal, she found the Queen full dressed, 
but lying on a bed in her apartment ; she sat down by the side 
of her pillow, and was received in a friendly manner, and with a 
familiar conversation, which dispelled all her suspicions, and 
would have done honour to the dissimulation of Mazarin him- 
self. While they were together the Prince of Conde entered the 
apartment to pay his respects to the Queen, but not wishing to 
interrupt their conversation, he withdrew a few minutes after. 
This was the last time that he was destined to see his mother : 
we shall find hereafter that she died of grief during his captivity. 

The Queen and the Princess were still engaged in conversation 
when the former received a message from Cardinal Mazarin that 



1650.] HIMSELF AND HIS BROTHERS ARRESTED. 85 

all was ready, and that they were waiting for her Majesty at the 
Council. This was the signal agreed upon, to announce that the 
Prince of Conti and the Duke de Longueville had arrived, and 
that they were about to proceed to the execution of the great pro- 
ject. Hereupon Anne of Austria took a friendly leave of the 
Princess : this was also the last time she saw her ; and she went 
in search of the young King, with whom she shut herself up in 
her oratory. Then she informed him of what was doing at that 
very moment, and desired him to kneel down and pray to God, 
with her, for the success of this enterprise !* 

During this time, the Princes and Ministers assembled for the 
Council were awaiting the Queen's arrival in the gallery. Some 
weeks previously the three Princes had come to the resolution, 
that for their common safety they would never go all three to- 
gether to the Council ; but on that day they had lured the Duke 
de Longueville, promising to grant him the reversion of the 
Vieux Palais of Rouen, which he had for a long time solicited 
for the young Marquis de Beuvron.f Whilst they were still 
waiting, Cardinal Mazarin went out, under some pretext, and 
then, instead of the Queen, were seen to enter Monsieur de 
Guitaut, captain of the guards, followed by his officers and his 
company. Conde thought at first that Guitaut, whom he liked, 
might have some favour to ask of him ; but Guitaut, approaching 
him, told him in his ear that he had the Queen's orders to arrest 
himself, the Prince of Conti, and the Duke de Longueville. 
Though much surprised by this sudden intimation, Conde ex- 
pressed neither fear nor concern. In a loud and firm voice he 
repeated to the Princes his brothers, and to the Ministers of 
State, what had just been announced to him. The Chancellor, 
confused by such an event, and not having been initiated into 
the secret, observed that it could only be a jest of Guitaut's. 
" Go then, and find the Queen," replied Conde, " and inform 
" her of the jest : as for me, I look upon it as very certain that 
" I am arrested.'' The Chancellor went out accordingly ; and, 
after a short interval of reflection, Conde' sent Guitaut also to the 
Queen, and Servien to the Cardinal, to entreat that they would 
grant him some moments of conversation ; but Guitaut soon re- 

* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iii.. p. 374. 
t Memoirs of Nemours, p. 295, ed. 1817. 



8G LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

turned, to tell him that the Queen had refused to see him, and 
had reiterated the order for his arrest. Upon this they were 
obliged to set out ; but the Duke de Longueville being ill, and 
the Prince of Conti quite scared, could hardly support them- 
selves. Conducted by Guitaut, the three Princes went down 
into the garden by a private staircase and a dark passage. 
" Here is what savours strongly of the States of Blois !" exclaimed 
Conde, alluding to the assassination of the Duke de Guise. 
" No, no, Monseigneur !" retorted Guitaut quickly ; " if that 
" were the case, I should not be concerned in it." In the garden 
the prisoners saw a double row of gendarmes and of body 
guards, and beyond that a door which opened upon the Rue de 
Richelieu, where one of the King's coaches awaited them, sur- 
rounded by an escort. Conde, walking at the head of the others, 
recognised, as he passed, several of his old soldiers, and addressed 
to them these words — u This is not the battle of Lens !" He no 
doubt hoped for some sudden burst of feeling in favour of their 
former chief; but their discipline was even stronger than their 
devotion to him ; none of them replied a word. As soon as 
the Princes had entered the carriage the horses set off at full 
gallop in the direction of Vincennes. They had reckoned so 
entirely upon secrecy for the execution of this project, that the 
escort consisted only of sixteen cavalry soldiers, commanded by 
Miossens, who was afterwards the Marechal d'Albret. The town 
was traversed without accident, but beyond it the road was so 
deep and miry, and the night so dark, that the carriage was 
overturned and broken. The prisoners were obliged to get out, 
and a ray of hope revived in Conde's heart. " Ah ! Miossens, 
" if you would ," said he.* But Miossens was already be- 
ginning to speak of his duty ; and Guitaut, seeing the Prince 
cast a look to the right and left, as though seeking some help, 
approached him, and said in his ear — " I am your Highness's 
u most humble servant, but I must warn you that I am pre- 
" pared to stab you to the heart rather than let you slip from 
" my hands, and thus not be enabled to render to the Queen a 
u good account of the charge with which she has intrusted me." 
After two hours of painful suspense, the coach was raised 

* Memoirs of Lenet, vol. i., p. 98. 



1650.] IMPRISONMENT AT VINCENNES. 87 

from the ground and repaired ; and at ten o'clock the Princes 
arrived at the chateau of Vincennes. They were lodged in the 
Donjon, but they found there neither beds nor supper : for to 
prevent any suspicion the Queen had not dared to direct the least 
preparation for their reception. The habits of the young war- 
rior made him nearly callous to such want of comfort. After 
having swallowed two fresh eggs, he threw himself, all dressed 
as he was, upon a bundle of straw, on which he slept for twelve 
hours without waking. This was the first token of that calm- 
ness and intrepidity which he displayed during the whole time 
he was in prison. As for the Prince of Conti and the Duke de 
Longueville, they seemed not only cast down, but aghast ; and 
they trembled, the first from fear, and the second from illness. 

A few days before had been obtained, without much trouble, 
the consent of the Duke of Orleans, Lieutenant-General of the 
kingdom, to this coup d'etat. When he heard of its successful 
execution, he exclaimed with some wit, " There is a good haul 
" of the net ; they have just taken together a fox, a monkey, 
"and a lion!"* 

The news of this great event was circulated through Paris 
that same night. Although taken quite by surprise, the Prince's 
friends wished to make an effort in his favour. A hundred gen- 
tlemen assembled under the Count de Boutteville, a young 
officer of the House of Montmorency, who became afterwards 
the Marechal de Luxembourg, and went towards the Yal de 
Grace, to carry off the Cardinal's nieces, and detain them as 
hostages ; but Mazarin having already foreseen the possibility of 
such a design, had placed them in safety in the Palais Royal. 
Some other partisans of Conde hoped to raise an insurrection 
amongst the people by spreading the report that it was not the 
Prince of Conde that had been arrested, but the Duke de Beau- 
fort. A feeble stratagem ! The people did rise, it is true, and 
were preparing to take arms ; but the moment the Duke de Beau- 
fort, their idol — " Le Roi des Halles," as they called him — 
appeared on horseback in the streets, followed by servants bear- 
ing flambeaux, to show their master — all became calm once 
more. And as soon as the people were sure that Conde really 

* Memoirs of Guy Joly, p. 113, ed.- 1817. 



88 LIFE OF COND6. [chap. rv. 

was a prisoner, the resentment at his conduct in the war of 
Paris in the last winter again became the paramount feeling. 
The conqueror of the Spaniards was forgotten, in the enemy of 
the Parliament and of public liberty ; and on that very night 
bonfires were lighted, of which the glimmering fire could be dis- 
tinguished even by the prisoners themselves from the Donjon of 
Vincennes. At the Palais Royal, as amongst the populace, 
gaiety reigned that night. A crowd of nobles attached to the 
party of the Fronde hastened to its saloons, which had long been 
closed against them, and overwhelmed the Queen and the Car- 
dinal by their noisy congratulations. Holding their swords in 
their hands, they swore that they would become the defenders of 
the throne and the main-stay of the government : several even 
added the somewhat equivocal compliment, that after such a 
blow struck by the Cardinal, they no longer considered him as a 
Mazarin ! 

On the other hand, the grief of the Princess of Conde* and 
the Dowager Princess may be imagined — the grief of a wife and 
a mother — when the Count de Brienne came from the Queen to 
announce the fatal news, and signify to them her orders that 
they should retire by the following day to their Chateau of 
Chantilly, accompanied by the Duke d'Enghien and the children 
of the Duke de Longueville. 

Mazarin had for some time hesitated whether he should not 
also arrest these two Princesses and the son of the Prince of 
Conde ; but he thought that all honourable men would accuse 
him of gross ingratitude to the memory of Cardinal Richelieu, 
his benefactor, if he advised the imprisonment of the young 
Princess, his niece, and that it would be thought a most cruel 
action to arrest a child of seven years old, with his mother and 
grandmother. " He considered also/' says Lenet, " that the 
" Dowager was a Princess of a timid and indolent disposition, 
" that the young Princess was without friends, without money, 
" and without experience, and not very well satisfied with the 
" conduct of the Prince her husband."* How far was he from 
foreseeing the great and noble actions of which this young 
Princess proved herself to be capable ! 

* Memoirs, vol. i., p. 104. 



1650.] THE DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 89 

The Court displayed less consideration towards the Duchess 
de Longueville, knowing her stirring and active spirit, and re- 
membering also her conduct during the war of Paris. As soon 
as Conde was arrested, the Duchess was summoned in all haste 
to the Palais Royal, with the intention of detaining her there a 
prisoner : but having been already informed of the event, she 
took refuge for several hours in the house of her friend the 
Princess Palatine ; that same night her lover, the Prince of Mar- 
sillac, went to carry her away, accompanied by several tried and 
zealous attendants, and conveyed her on horseback towards Nor- 
mandy, where she hoped to succeed in effecting an insurrection. 

The Minister failed equally in securing the Duke de Bouillon 
and the Viscount de Turenne : these two brothers, warned in 
time, set off in all haste from Paris — the Viscount for Cham- 
pagne, where he intended to take up his residence at Stenay, a 
fortified town belonging to Monsieur le Prince ; the Duke to his v 
Viscounty of Turenne, in Auvergne, hoping there to assemble 
his vassals and his neighbours. Of all that party, the President 
Perrault of the Chamber of AccountSj and agent to Conde, was 
the only one whom the Court succeeded in seizing. 

On the next day the Parliament received orders to send 
Deputies to the Palais Royal ; and the Chancellor, in the Queen's 
presence, explained the motives which had determined her 
Majesty to arrest the Princes. Some days after these motives 
were developed at greater length in a letter from the Queen, 
which the Judge Advocate, Talon, brought to the assembled 
Chambers. Conde's friends had, however, the consolation of 
seeing that they could not impute to him any understanding 
with the enemies of the State, nor any conspiracy against the 
safety of the throne : it was only said that the growing power of 
his family obscured the Royal authority, and there followed an 
angry recapitulation of the offices and employments which he 
had obtained since the Regency. But if these favours did really 
appear excessive, ought not such a crime to be imputed rather to 
those who granted them than to him on whom they were lavished, 
and might not a little presumption well be pardoned in a young 
Prince of twenty-nine, after so many victories achieved ? 

In the Queen Regent's letter was also a formal protestation 
that "Her Majesty had no intention of infringing upon the 



90 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

" Declaration of the 24th of October ; on the contrary, she wishes 
u and intends that the aforesaid Declaration should continue in 
" its full force and effect." What security, however, did such a 
promise afford ? How could any private individual rely upon a 
law for the public safety which was infringed upon even in the 
case of Princes of the Blood ? But Cardinal Mazarin was well 
aware that parties rarely look beyond their own immediate interest. 
Vengeance is dearer to them than safety ; and they will always 
allow a principle to be violated, provided only they see an enemy 
crushed. The most enlightened magistrates — Mathieu Mole 
especially — deplored the arbitrary blow which had just been 
dealt by the State, and appeared gloomy and thoughtful : nine- 
tenths of their Company, on the contrary, expressed great joy. 
It was only in favour of the President Perrault that they resolved 
to tender a remonstrance to her Majesty. The Queen received 
them with kindness, and assured them that the affair of the 
President Perrault should be forthwith examined into, and that 
if the suspicions on his conduct were proved to be groundless, 
he should be immediately set free. 

No other Parliament of the kingdom bestirred itself in Conde's 
favour. The majority of his partisans and the greater number 
of his chateaux were equally taken by surprise. The Count de 
Marsin, who was entirely devoted to his interests and who com- 
manded in Catalonia, was arrested at the head of his troops and 
sent as a prisoner to France. The Chevalier de la Rochefou- 
cauld allowed himself to be intercepted in Dammartin ; and 
there now only remained in Champagne the town of Stenay, 
where M. de Turenne had arrived, and had assumed the title of 
" Lieutenant-General of the King's army for the deliverance of 
" the Princes." In Berry, the new governor, the Count de St. 
Aignan, made himself master of the citadel of Bourges, which 
was called " The Great Tower" {La Grosse Tour); and only 
the chateau of Montrond, though almost without a garrison, still 
remained faithful to the family of Conde. 

In the provinces of Burgundy and Normandy, however, 
which had long been governed by the Houses of Conde and 
Longueville, there was some reason to hope for a general re- 
volt. Lenet was at Dijon when he received the first news of 
the imprisonment of the Princes ; he instantly despatched a 



1650.] THE PRINCESS DOWAGER. 91 

courier to Paris with letters for the Princess Dowager, the Prin- 
cess, and the Duchess de Longueville. He strongly advised 
the Dowager to bring the Duke d'Enghien into Burgundy, 
and place herself at the head of the party — the Princess to 
join her father, the 3Iarechal de Breze, in Anjou — and Madame 
de Longueville to set off to Eouen. The courier found the 
Dowager Princess still at Paris, having solicited and obtained 
from the Court a delay of several days in her journey to Chan- 
tilly. The manner in which this Princess received Lenet's 
advice shows not unaptly the two prominent traits of her cha- 
racter in her old age — the fear of entangling herself, and the 
horror of spending money. u My courier," says Lenet, brought 
c; me back no letter ; he told me only ' de rive voix ' that 
u the Princess Dowager had read and burnt the one I had 
'- written to her, and also the one which he had been desired to 
u give to the Princess, whom she forbade his seeing, saying that 
" such affairs ought not to be communicated to a person of her 
M age ; that at the very slightest demonstration of resistance they 
" would both be put in prison ; that as for her, she wished to 
w live quietly, and weep over the misfortunes of her family in 
w her retreat at Chantilly ; that she hoped by her prayers to 
u obtain God's grace to make known the innocence of her 
" children to the King : that she would let all her friends act as 
u they thought proper, but that she would interfere in nothing 
" which would endanger her own liberty : that she begged me not 
" to write to her, but hoped I should always love her House. 
" Such was the answer of the Princess Dowager, which made 
w me lose all the hopes that I had conceived of exciting an in- 
" surrection in Burgundy in favour of the Princes."* Accord- 
ingly the Castle of Dijon opened its gates to the newly -appointed 
Governor, the Duke de Vendome ; and the other fortified towns 
in the province yielded in the same manner, with the exception 
of Beliegarde on the Saone, where the Counts de Tavannes and 
de Boutteville, with many other brave gentlemen, had shut 
themselves up. 

The Duchess de Longueville had already, of her own accord, 
adopted the plan which Lenet suggested. Already on the night 

* Memoirs, vol. i,, p. SO, 95, 



92 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

of the 18th she was on her road into Normandy, escorted by the 
Prince of Marsillac and about forty horsemen. By the next 
day she had arrived at Rouen. The Marquis de Beuvron, of 
the House of Harcourt, who commanded the " old palace/' as 
they called the citadel, received her very coldly, although the 
Duke de Longueville had risked a good deal for him on the 
evening before at the Palais Royal, where he went expressly to 
do him service. Mazarin, however, did not leave time enough 
to the Duchess to concert her measures. He thought, and truly, 
that the presence of the Sovereign might crush the revolt in its 
bud ; and having hastily assembled some troops, he made the 
Queen and the young King set off for Normandy by the 1st of 
February. At the news of their approach the populace of 
Rouen did, in fact, as he had expected, revolt against the 
Duchess, who was obliged to take to flight. She hoped to find 
an asylum at Havre with her friend Madame de Pons, the new 
Duchess de Richelieu ; but this latter was already negotiating 
with the Court to have her marriage ratified as the price of her 
submission. Caen and the Pont de l'Arche equally flung open 
their gates to the King's troops. Then as a last resource, and 
followed only by a very small retinue, Madame de Longueville 
threw herself into the castle of Dieppe. 

The Cardinal, who knew the importance of gaining time in a 
civil war, hastened to send a body of troops in pursuit of her. 
At their approach the governor of the castle declared that he 
should continue faithful to the King ; and it was in vain that 
the Duchess harangued the populace of the town, and tried to 
excite them to take her defence. What resource was then left 
to her ? Her courage chafed at the idea of submitting to her 
enemies — and to embark at a moment when the tempest howled, 
and the wind was contrary, threatened her life. 

The sister of Conde did not hesitate. She first made a general 
confession to a priest, with all the marks of a sincere repentance, 
and desired her lover Marsillac to depart from her, and go and 
assemble his vassals in Poitou. Then she left the castle by a 
secret door which was not guarded, followed by several gentlemen, 
and by some of her women who had the courage not to forsake 
her. It was night, and fearful weather : she walked, however, 
two leagues to reach a little port (it was, I suppose, Ailly), where 



1650.] ADVENTURES IN NORMANDY. 93 

she had kept a ship ready in the roads. She found in the port 
only two little fishermen's boats ; neither of them would venture 
out, so raging and violent was the tempest. At last, however, 
they yielded to her entreaties. But the sailor who took her in 
his arms to carry her through the breakers was unable to resist 
the united strength of wind and sea, and let fall his burthen into 
the water. She was on the very point of perishing, but several 
men dashed into the waves to save her, and at length succeeded 
in rescuing her and dragging her senseless upon the beach. She 
had scarcely recovered her consciousness, when with a most 
heroic courage she wished to attempt another embarkation ; but 
this time the seamen were thoroughly alarmed, and remained 
deaf to her entreaties and to her promises of a large reward. 

Then it became necessary to change the whole plan. For- 
tunately there were horses at hand. The Duchess placed herself 
on a pillion behind a horseman ; the ladies of her suite did the 
same, and they succeeded in reaching in this manner the house 
of a gentleman of the country of Caux, who gave them an asy- 
lum. She took, however, only a few hours of repose : by night 
she approached the coast with the intention of again putting 
to sea ; the wind was lulled, and fortune seemed to smile upon 
her design, when at the very moment of her embarkation she saw 
one of her equerries making towards her at full speed, bearing 
the news that she had been betrayed, and that the captain of 
the ship had promised Mazarin to secure her as a prisoner the 
moment she should go on board. Warned in time, the Duchess 
again took refuge inland, and wandered during fifteen days 
from one retreat to another, according to the intelligence she 
received. At the end of this time she found means of gaining 
over the captain of an English ship at Havre, to whom a story 
was told of a gentleman who had fought a duel, and wished 
to escape into Holland. The Englishman, well paid, promised 
to convey her. Thus the Duchess embarked, disguised in men's 
clothes, and reached Rotterdam without accident, where she 
once more assumed the dress of her own sex, and the splen- 
dour suitable to her rank. She was received with great kind- 
ness at the Court of the Princess of Orange, daughter of 
Charles I. of England ; but she only remained there a few days, 
and set off hastily to throw herself into the fortress of Stenay, 



94 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap, iv 

Once arrived there, and with the gallant Turenne, it is to be 
feared that she soon forgot not only her new vows of penitence, 
but also her faith to her former lover.* 

Equal in beauty to the Duchess de Longueville> the Duchess 
de Bouillon at this same time proved not inferior to her in 
courage. Passionately anxious for the aggrandisement of her 
family, she had directed all the political intrigues of her husband 
with dexterity and skill ; but she had not been able to follow him 
into Auvergne, being then far advanced in pregnancy. The 
Queen, with very little generosity, had her arrested before she 
went herself into Normandy. The Duchess de Bouillon was de- 
livered of a child that same day, and had continued ever since to 
be closely guarded in her own house as a prisoner. But on her 
recovery she often received visits from her little daughter, who 
was seven years of age, and one day found an opportunity of 
making her escape. While the sentinel who was waiting in the 
ante-room was taking his light and walking on in front of her 
little girl, to show her the way out, the Duchess followed her 
daughter, stooping behind her and unperceived. She thus crept 
as far as the cellar, from whence one of her women extricated 
her through the air-hole. Having found an asylum at Paris in 
the house of one of her friends for several days, she was on the 
point of setting off to join her husband, when her daughter fell 
ill of the small-pox. She could not make up her mind to leave 
her. This tender mother was found watching at the pillow of 
her child, and from thence was conveyed to the Bastille.f 

Normandy having submitted to the Royal authority, Anne of 
Austria and Louis XIY. returned to Paris, but the Cardinal 
made them set out almost immediately again towards Burgundy 
to commence the siege of Bellegarde. J Whilst before this town 
the young King went more than once to visit the works and the 
trenches. Whenever he was seen by the besieged they never 

* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iii., p. 416-429, ed. 1723; Vie de la 
Duchesse de Longueville, p. 158-168, ed. 1738. 

f Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iii., p. 418, 439. 

X This place must not be confounded with one of the same name on the 
Geneva frontier. The Bellegarde of which we are now speaking is be- 
tween Dole and Chalons sur Saone ; it is now called Seurre, but then was 
Bellegarde, after one of its Seigneurs. — (Guide Pittoresque en France, 
vol. i., Dept, de la Cote d'Or, p. 1".) 



1650.] HIS DEMEANOUR IN PRISON. 95 

omitted exclaiming " Vive le Roi I " and waving their hats in 
the air ; but their batteries still continued to fire, and they 
thought themselves quite freed from their duty by abusing Ma- 
zarin amongst themselves for thus exposing the sacred person of 
his Majesty I Amongst all these young gentlemen filled with 
bravery, but devoid of discipline, not one would obey, and not 
one knew how to command ; and it was already foreseen that 
their fortress could not hold out much longer. 

In Anjou the Prince's party sustained a still greater loss. The 
Marechal de Breze fell dangerously ill, and the Princess of Conde' 
earnestly solicited the permission of the Court to go and attend 
the last moments of her dying father ; but the Queen harshly 
refused.* The Marshal expired on the 13th of February, in his 
house at Milly, near Saumur, of which place he was Governor. 
On his death-bed he made Dumont, one of his principal officers, 
swear to keep this important town in its allegiance to the Prin- 
cess of Conde, his daughter; but Mazarin, on hearing of his 
death, lost no time in sending thither a body of troops, and 
in tempting Dumont's fidelity by offering him large sums of 
money. Thus, all over the kingdom Conde's party was either 
defeated or forsaken : for him there appeared neither any re- 
monstrance from the Parliaments nor any revolt amongst the 
people, nor even much sympathy amongst the nobles. He and 
his brothers, shut up in the Donjon of Vincennes, were deprived 
of all communication with their friends, and watched most nar- 
rowly by the Sieur Bar, a harsh and implacable man. We find 
in the memoirs of those times some details upon their conduct 
during their captivity : " Of these three Princes who are prisoners, 
" M. de Longueville is very melancholy, and never utters a word ; 
" Monsieur le Prince de Conti weeps, and hardly leaves his bed ; 
" Monsieur le Prince de Conde sings, swears, hears Mass in the 
" morning, reads Italian or French books, dines, and plays at 
" battledoor and shuttlecock. A few days ago, as Monsieur le 
" Prince de Conti entreated some one to bring him the work 
" entitled ' L' Imitation de Jesus Christ,' that he might console 
" himself by reading it, the Prince of Conde exclaimed, ' And 
" for me, Sir, I entreat you to send me ; The Imitation of M. 

* Petition to the Parliament of Bordeaux, 1st of June, 1650. 



96 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

" de Beaufort/ so that I may be able to escape from hence, as 
" he did two years ago ! ' " * 

Such was the state of things when Lenet set off from Paris to 
find the Princesses at Chantilly. Both of them received him 
with great marks of friendship ; and bursting into tears related 
to him the details of the arrest of the Princes. From this they 
proceeded to tell him of the infidelity of several persons who had 
been till now in their interest ; complaining that very little faith 
could be placed even in some of their own servants. They be- 
stowed on Lenet, and with reason, their most complete confi- 
dence ; and it was not long ere that skilful and devoted servant 
undertook the principal direction of their party. He became 
the very soul of this little council, composed principally of 
women, of whom several were beaming with youth and beauty, 
and many were animated by the noblest courage. There was to 
be seen the Countess de Tourville, of the House of La Koche- 
foucauld, a woman of conduct and resolution, whom Conde had 
placed about the Princess at the death of Richelieu as her Lady of 
Honour. There too was the Countess de Gouville, her daughter, 
only eighteen years of age, and Miss Gerbier, a young and 
handsome Englishwoman, who was Maid of Honour to the 
Princess.f 

Occasionally was to be seen there also the Presidente de Nes- 
mond, who was sent to Chantilly by her husband every now and 
then to preach patience and submission. But above all was to 
be remarked Angelique de Montmorency, Duchess de Chatillon, 
who, as a relation and intimate friend of the Dowager Princess, 
exerted a very great influence over her mind. She had arrived 
at Chantilly at the same time as Lenet. Since the death of 
Chatillon the fair widow had again received the eager attentions 
of Conde : receiving him kindly as a friend, she had not, how- 
ever, by any means encouraged him as a lover, and seemed to 
prefer to him another young Prince, the Duke de Nemours. But 
since Conde's imprisonment she had warmly devoted herself to his 
interests, and had even taken advantage of her ascendency over the 

* Letter of Doctor Guy Patin, March 1, 1650. 

t This young lady was probably a daughter of Gerbier, the English 
Resident in Flanders, of whom mention is made in Anne of Austria's De- 
claration of the 17th August, 1637. — fSismondi, vol. xxiii., p. 334.) 



1650.] THE YOUNG DUKE D'ENGHIEN. 97 

Duke de Nemours, to make him forget his jealousy, and give his 
word to the Princess Dowager that he would serve his former 
rival with all his power. 

In those times of frivolous taste and depraved morality, the 
great qualities of the young Princess of Conde were still by no 
means understood or appreciated, and they conversed before her 
only on common topics. As soon as Lenet arrived at Chantilly, 
she took him aside to complain of this want of confidence. u She 
" told me also," says Lenet, " that they threatened to take from 
" her her son, the young Duke d'Enghien, who was her only 
" remaining hope, and in whom her only consolation in this 
" world was centered. She then entreated me not to consent 
" that this great injustice should be done to her : adding, that if 
" it were for the interest of the Prince her husband, to remove 
" her son from Chantilly, she would follow him everywhere, even 
w to the head of an army, and that she should never forget the 
" obligations imposed upon her by the honour she had had in 
" marrying a Prince of the Blood, of such rare genius and ex- 
" traordinary merit as Monsieur le Prince her husband." Lenet 
very much applauded these generous sentiments, and promised 
the Princess to oppose with all his power the separation from 
her son, which she dreaded. u I already foresaw," said he, 
u how much we should stand in need of this Princess and that 
" young Prince." * 

On the other hand, according to the same author, " The many 
K various suggestions which were made to the Princess Dowager 
" altogether distracted her judgment. She hardly knew whom 
" to trust, nor what to determine upon. Her natural vacillation 
" was aided and increased by the thousand different counsels she 
" received. She explained her thoughts to me pretty clearly, 
" and I saw that timidity and avarice destroyed in one moment 
" all that at other times was prompted by courage, the thirst for 
" vengeance, and the wish of restoring freedom to her children. 
" Sometimes she feared to be arrested like them ; sometimes that 
" they should be poisoned if a war was attempted ; sometimes 
" that their imprisonment would last beyond her life, if she re- 
" mained inactive ; and she never retained the same resolution 

* Memoirs of Lenet, yoI. i., p. 125. 



98 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

" for one hour. At length we got her to agree that whilst a war 
" was carried on at the frontier, or in some of the provinces of 
" the kingdom, of which war she could not be accused, remaining 
" quietly in her house at Chantilly, her friends might attempt 
" to create an interest either in one party or the other at Court, 
" according to which appeared most promising when the Court 
" was divided into parties, as there was great reason to suppose 
" it soon would be, from the inveterate aversion which was borne 
u towards Mazarin even by those who had been lately reconciled 
" to him.'** 

It was Lenet himself who became the director of all these 
negotiations. He made several secret journeys to Paris by a 
path which he had opened for himself, between Louvres and 
Lusarches, without passing by either of those villages. At Paris 
he came in and went out by several gates, and lodged at different 
places, but always in the house of some of his own party. 
His principal confidants there were the Dukes de Rohan and de 
Nemours, the Marechal de la Mothe, and the Archbishop of 
Sens. " One day," says he, " whilst I was taking a collation 
" with the Marquis and Marchioness de St. Simon, they came to 
" tell us that Servien, Secretary of State, who was their neigh- 
" bour, was coming to pass the evening with them, so that I 
" had no other alternative than that of throwing myself behind 
" the bed in the room where we were eating. I remained there 
" a full hour, listening to a conversation which was by no means 
" pleasing to me, and very much opposed to the design which 
U had brought me there. Servien was a man of considerable 
" talent, well informed and daring, but violent, and holding very 
" despotic opinions. He entertained the Marquis and Mar- 
" chioness with nothing but an account of the punishments which 
" were in preparation for all those w r ho showed any attachment 
" to the Princes, and on the utter impossibility of ever seeing 
" them restored to liberty ! " 

Notwithstanding all Lenet's exertions, however, his intrigues 
at Paris made no progress. Neither the Courtiers nor the 
Frondeurs would at present lend themselves to any step which 
could in any degree lead to the liberty of the Princes. He there- 

* Memoirs of Lenet, p. 132. 






1650.] ANECDOTES OF HENEY IV. 99 

fore renewed, with fresh vigour, his correspondence with the 
nobles who had retired into the provinces, especially the Duke 
de Bouillon and the Prince of Marsillac. Both of them were in 
the best possible dispositions in favour of the party. Bouillon 
was justly irritated at his wife's arrest ; and in his Viscounty of 
Turenne, in Auvergne, he could boast of several hundred gentle- 
men at his disposal. On all fete days he was wont to assemble his 
subjects (for so he called his vassals) to exercise them in the use 
of arms ;* and by this plan he was enabled to set on foot as many 
as four thousand well-regulated troops. Marsillac was scarcely 
less powerful in Angoumois, and his sole ambition was to please 
Madame de Longueville. He had lately become Duke de la 
Rochefoucauld by the death of his father. He intended to rendei 
him solemn obsequies at the Chateau de Yerteuil, and to make 
use of this pretext for assembling all his friends and vassals, and 
marching at their head to join the garrison of Saumur. On his 
side Lenet promised that at the first favourable opportunity he 
would try to persuade the Princesses to leave their residence at 
Chantilly, and go and establish themselves at the fortified Chateau 
of Montrond, in Berry, in order to place their persons in safety, 
and to animate the revolt by their presence. 

u During this correspondence," says Lenet, " I used to go to 
" and from Paris secretly ; and when I was at Chantilly I often 
" had the honour of walking with the Princesses, the Duchess 
" de Chatillon, and the Countess de Tourville. These prome- 

" nades were the most pleasant things in the world 

" The Princess Dowager had an agreeable wit and a sparkling 
" conversation : she often spoke with regret of the Queen's in- 
" gratitude towards her, recalling the many services which she 
" had rendered her during the life of the late King, of which 
" she narrated to us many curious particulars. She sometimes 
" described to us, with horror, the character of Cardinal Riche- 
" lieu ; then she told us many singular and interesting anecdotes 

" connected with the love of Henry IV. for herself. I 

" cannot resist inserting here an adventure which she related to 
" us, and which appeared to me to be very amusing. The Prince 

* See Lenet, vol. L p. 293. He adds, " If all the Seigneurs did the same, 
" there "would be much less of drunkenness among the peasantry." But 
rebels are even worse than drunkards ! 

h2 



100 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

" of Conde, her husband, and father of the present one, absented 
" himself as much as possible from the Court in order to remove 
" the Princess from the eyes of Henry IV. He had retired to 
11 Verteuil, an abbey situated at the entrance into Picardy ; and 
" as he had invited several friends and dependents to celebrate 
" with him the feast of St. Hubert, the Sieur and Lady de Trigny 
" invited the Princesses, mother and wife of the Prince, to go 
" and dine on that day at their house, which was only three or four 
" leagues from this abbey. It would seem very much as though 
" this party had been concerted with the King, but he was at 
" any rate informed of it by the Sieur de Trigny, who always 
" assisted him in his pleasures ; so that the Princesses, making 
" this promenade, saw a carriage pass with the King's liveries p 
" and a great number of dogs. The Princess-mother, who was 
" passionately fond of her son, and watched the actions of the 
" young Princess very narrowly, feared that, under the pretext 
" of some hunting excursion, the King had prepared for them 
" a rendezvous. She called the huntsmen, whom she saw at 
" a distance : they approached, but one of them, advancing 
" before the others, came to the door of the coach to give the 
" Princess an answer to what she asked, and disarmed her fears 
u by telling her that a captain of the hunt, who was in the neigh- 
" bourhood to celebrate the feast of St. Hubert, had placed the 
" relays where she saw them because he was hunting a stag with 
" some of his friends. Whilst the Princess Dowager was speak- 
" ing to the huntsman, the young Princess, who was at the portiere 
" of the coach, observed the others who had remained at a 
" little distance, and perceived that one of them was the King, 
w who, the better to disguise himself under the livery which he 
" wore, had put a large black plaister over his left eye, and held 
" two greyhounds in a leash. The Princess told us that she had 
" never been more surprised in her life, and that she did not 
" dare mention what she had seen to her mother-in-law for fear 
" she should tell it to her husband. She acknowledged to us at 
" the same time that this gallantry had not displeased her ; and 
" continuing her story she told us that, having arrived at Trigny, 
" she made an exclamation, on entering the drawing-room, at the 
" extreme beauty of the view, on which Madame de Trigny said 
" to her that if she liked to put her head at a window she would 



1650.] DAILY LIFE AT CHANTILLY. 101 

" show her, she would see one which was still more agreeable. 
" Having advanced to it, she saw that the King was placed at 
" the window of a pavilion opposite, he having gone in advance 
" of her after having had the pleasure of seeing her on her road, 
" and that he held all the time one hand on his lips, to send her, ' 
" as it were, a kiss, and the other on his heart, to show her that 
" it had been wounded. The surprise of this rencontre not 
" giving the Princess time to reason on what she should do, 
" she retired abruptly from the window, and cried out, ' Oh, 
" heavens, what is this ? Madam, the King is here ! ' On 
" which the Dowager Princess, greatly exasperated, divided her 
" words between ordering her horses to be immediately put to 
" her coach and pouring forth abuse and injurious expressions 
il against Trigny, with whom she was conversing, and against 
u hie wife, who was speaking to the young Princess. Even the 
<fc King, who hastened to the spot on hearing the commotion, 
u was not exempted from her reproaches and invectives. The 
iC enamoured Prince employed all the entreaties which his 
" passion dictated to him, and all the promises that were pos- 
" sible, to persuade her to stay ; but vainly, for the Princesses 
" re-entered their carriage, and returned instantly to Yerteuil, 
" where that same night the Princess-mother broke the promise 
" which the King had drawn from her, and told the whole story 
" to her son, who a few days after carried off the Princess his 
" wife, took her to Brussels, and placed her in the hands of the 
" Infanta Isabella. 

" The evenings at Chantilly were not less amusing than the 
" walks ; for after the usual prayers had been read in the chapel, 
81 which everybody attended, all the ladies retired into the apart- 
" ment of the Princess Dowager, where they played at various 
" games and sung. There were often fine voices, and always 
" very agreeable conversations, and stories of Court intrigues 
" and gallantries, which made life pass as pleasantly as it was 
" possible to us attendants, who nevertheless shared very sin- 
u cerely the grief of the Princesses. Sometimes we read in 
" private conclave, with the Dowager, the letters of the Duchess 
" de Longueville, and the serious or satirical publications which 
" were set afloat in favour of the Princes and against the Car- 
a dinal ; and sometimes we examined those which had been 



102 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. iv. 

u composed, but not yet published. These amusements were 
* often disturbed by the bad news which was brought in con- 
" cerning some of the servants of the house who were either 
u exiled or arrested ; or of several plans which had been over- 
" thrown, and of which we had perhaps hitherto conceived great 
" hopes. 

" It was a great pleasure to see all the young ladies who com- 
" posed this Court melancholy or gay according to the frequency 
u or rarity of the visits that were paid them, and the nature of 

" the letters they received We used to see constantly 

** messengers or visitors arriving, which gave great jealousy to 
" those who received none ; and all this drew forth verses, 
" sonnets, and elegies, which equally amused the indifferent and 
" those personally interested in them. Some were to be seen 
" walking on the edge of the water, some in the alleys of the 
" park or garden, on the terrace or on the lawn, alone or in 
w parties, according to the state of mind in which they were ; 
" whilst others sung airs, or recited verses, or read romances on 
ec a balcony, or as they walked or reposed on the grass. Never 
" was there seen so beautiful a place, in such a beautiful season, 
u filled with better or more agreeable company. Such was our 
" situation when on the 11th of April, at eight o'clock in the 
" morning, the Princess Dowager received some news which did 
u not surprise me much, because I had often been astonished 
" that it had not happened sooner ; but it grieved me extremely, 
" because this misfortune destroyed, or at least delayed, all the 
" measures which we had taken." * 

* Lenet, Memoirs, vol. i., p. 173-182. He adds, " From that day I com- 
" menced a journal, and kept it as exactly as the great affairs which were 
" intrusted to me allowed me, and I shall make use of it for the continuation 
" of these Memoirs." 



1650.] THE LETTRE DE CACHET. 103 



CHAPTER V. 

Lettre de Cachet against the Princess brought by Du Vouldy — Her cou- 
rageous Resolution — Her Disguise of one of her Attendants — She escapes 
with her Son from Chantilly, crosses the Loire, and arrives at the For- 
tress of Montrond — Her Preparations for Defence — The Princess Dowager 
appears before the Parliament of Paris — The Princess combines a Civil 
War in Guyenne — She leaves Montrond — Joins the Army of the Dukes 
de Bouillon and de la Rochefoucauld — Her Residence at the Chateau de 
Turenne — Skirmish at Brive la Gaillarde. 
t 

It was then on the morning of the 11th of April, 1650, that 
advices were received from several quarters that some Royal 
Guards had marched from Paris and Soissons, and were ap- 
proaching Chantilly in both directions, having last night taken 
up their station in the neighbouring villages. The Princess 
Dowager, justly alarmed, sent to reconnoitre in these places 
whether this intelligence was true ; and it having been confirmed 
by mid-day, she assembled after dinner her little Council in the 
apartment of the Duchess de Chatillom Opinions were divided 
as to the motive of this sudden arrival of the troops, but all 
agreed in saying that there was no longer any safety at Chantilly 
for the Princesses, and still less for the Duke d'Enghien. Lenet 
then began to develop the plan which he had been framing for 
some time past ; he proposed to take the young Duke beyond 
the Loire, where his presence could not fail to give to their 
party a specious name, to dispel any latent jealousy among the 
great nobles, and to animate the enthusiasm of the people. But 
here Lenet was interrupted by the young Princess. " I am not/' 
she said, " either of an age or experience that should entitle 
" me to give my advice ; I have no other wish than to pay all 
" deference to that of my mother-in-law. But I entreat her 
" most humbly that whatever may happen, I may not be sepa- 
" rated from my son, my only remaining hope ; I will follow 
" him everywhere with joy, whatever dangers I may have to en- 
" counter, and I am ready to expose myself to anything for the 



104 LIFE OF COND^. [chap, v 

" service of the Prince my husband ! M The Princess Dowager 
replied to her with tears in her eyes and with praises for her zeal. 
Since both of them, she added, had but the same object — that of 
saving, in the person of the young Prince, the remains of their 
House and the fragment from their wreck — so they should both 
share the same destiny ; they would try to put themselves out 
of the power of their persecutors, and bring up their son in the 
fear of God and for the service of the King. 

At this point the conference was interrupted by the arrival of 
the Bishop of Senlis, who was to administer the rite of confir- 
mation to several young persons. But soon after, at five o'clock, 
an agent of the Princess, who came from Paris, brought the 
news that he had seen one of the Gentlemen in Ordinary to the 
King pass the great road in the forest, and that ftiis gentleman 
had told him he was going to see the Princesses, but without 
giving him any explanation of the object of his visit. This new 
intelligence confirmed the suspicions which the marching of the 
troops had already raised in their minds, and they no longer 
doubted that this gentleman was the bearer of some order from 
the King to remove or to arrest t.he Princesses and the Duke. 
There remained only a few moments to decide. Nearly at the 
same moment one of the Princess's equerries announced that a 
Gentleman of the King's had arrived at the chateau ; that his 
name was Du Vouldy ; that he was the bearer of letters from 
his Majesty to the two Princesses, and that he requested to be 
introduced to them. Then the Princess Dowager yielded to 
Lenet's entreaties to retire to her apartment, throw herself on her 
bed, and counterfeit illness. Lenet himSelf passed in all haste to 
the apartment of the young Princess, who had gone to bed for a 
real illness, a severe cold and fever ; but as soon as she heard that 
the moment for action was come, she rose, without complaining 
of her health, and stationed Miss Gerbier, her Maid of Honour, 
in her place. She then passed into the apartment of her mother- 
in-law, where she hid herself behind her bed, with Lenet and 
the Duchess de Chatillon, whilst the gentleman sent by the King 
was introduced into the Dowager's room. 

Du Youldy having been presented, delivered the lettre de 
cachet with which he had been intrusted : it was dated from 
Dijon, where the Court had gone for the siege of Bellegarde. 



1650.] MISS GERBIER'S DISGUISE. 105 

This letter announced that the King, judging that the residence 
of the Princesses at Chantilly was prejudicial to his affairs, had 
resolved to make them remove to Chateauroux in Berry with 
the Duke d'Enghien and the children of the Duke de Longue- 
ville, and that M. Du Youldy was to conduct them by the route 
which had been given to him, with orders not to leave them.* 

The Princess Dowager 3 after having read the letter, replied to 
the bearer, " That she was neither of an age nor health to set off 
u so suddenly on the journey which the King (or rather he who 
" persecuted her under the King's name) had ordered her to 
" make ; that she was going to write to the Duke of Orleans to 
" obtain some time to make her preparations ; and as to him 
" (Du Youldy), he might meanwhile go and deliver to the 
u Princess, her daughter-in-law, the letter with which he was 
" charged for her, walk about, rest himself, and in a word, 
" amuse himself at the Chateau in any way he liked best." 

Du Youldy proceeded therefore to the apartment of the young 
Princess. There he was presented to Miss Gerbier, who had 
placed herself in her mistress's bed. and so perfectly mimicked 
her tone, her manner of speaking, the reproaches and complaints 
which she made against the Queen and the Cardinal, and the 
tears which she appeared to shed, that she deceived Du Youldy, 
not for that day only, but for a whole week. He thought that 
he might venture to grant, without danger, the delay which was 
asked of him, on the ground of illness ; and in answer to some 
rumours which were afloat at Paris on the escape of the Princess, 
he wrote word to the Court that he could answer for the contrary, 
and that he saw her Highness at all hours of the day ! 

On leaving the chamber of the Princess, Du Youldy was taken 
to see the Duke d'Enghien, whom he asked to visit ; but he saw 
only the son of the gardener, who, like the Duke, was seven years 
of age, and who, by Lenet's orders, had been equipped in the Duke's 
clothes as soon as the King's gentleman had arrived : and as 
Du Youldy found this child in the midst of the governess and the 
women who had the charge of the little Prince, he never for a 
moment doubted but that it was him. They then conducted him 
to the fine promenoirs of Chantilly, and from thence to his room, 

* Compare Lenet, vol. i., p. 192. and Montglat, vol. iii., p. 115. 



106 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. v. 

where they entertained him with their company whilst the Prin- 
cesses reassembled their council. " As I saw," says Lenet, " that 
" they were all preparing themselves for long speeches, I inter- 
u rupted the one who spoke second, since I knew there was no time 
" to be lost .... and I said that I saw no better plan in the 
" present conjuncture, than to carry off in all haste the persons 
" of the Duke d'Enghien and the Princess his mother, who had 
u offered herself a few hours previously." The young Princess 
did not shrink from any danger, but fear had taken possession of 
the Dowagers mind. "Where do you intend to take them ?" 
said she to Lenet in a bitter tone. " To Montrond, Madam," 
replied this faithful servant, "and I feel sure of conveying them 
" safely." " You wish to have us all taken prisoners !" exclaimed 
the Princess Dowager angrily. " We are so already, Madam," 
retorted Lenet ; " and should they even arrest us on the road, we 
" could not be worse off than we are now." 

Every one applauded these words of Lenet ; and the Princess 
Dowager calming herself, desired him to continue his discourse. 
He therefore proceeded to say that it was very much to be 
wished, as her Highness had said that day, that all her House 
should share the same fate, and that she should not be separated 
from Madame her daughter-in-law and Monsieur her grandson ; 
but that no one would like to expose a Princess like herself, of 
delicate health and advanced age, to the fatigues of so unforeseen 
and hurried a journey. He proposed therefore that while the 
young Princess and the Duke d'Enghien should go to Montrond, 
and perhaps place themselves afterwards at the head of an army, 
the Dowager should go a few days later to Paris and present a 
petition to the Parliament for the liberation of her children, and 
claiming the execution of the Decree of the 24th of October, 
1648. All the little council at Chantilly agreed in urging this 
advice ; and after some further hesitation the Princess Dowager 
at last resolved upon it. She was to be accompanied to Paris by 
her friend the Duchess de Chatillon, who generously promised 
never to forsake her, whilst the Countess de Tourville undertook 
to convey the young Princess. The night, however, had by this 
time arrived, and they could not any longer defer the journey to 
Montrond. A dark -coloured coach without arms had been pre- 
pared by the care of Lenet ; and for better security in the event 



1650.] ESCAPE OF THE PRINCESS. 107 

of any hostile meeting, the little Prince was disguised in girl's 
clothes. The young Princess confided all her jewels to the 
charge of Madame de Tourville, as also those of her father the 
Marechal de Breze, for whom she still wore mourning. 

According to Lenet, " The Princess Dowager had prepared a 
" coffer, filled with a service of gold plate, to put behind the 
" coach ; but those who had to arrange the equipage thought 
" that they had a much more valuable treasure within to save, 
" and that it was better not to risk losing it by the weight of the 
" other. Her Highness gave us some jewels of little value, and 
11 to me a gold watch, which she snatched from her side, where 
u she wore it, saying very obligingly to me, that she begged I 
" would remember her, and that she confided to me, in the 
" person of the young Duke, the dearest thing she had in the 
" world ; but that she entreated me never to place him in the 
" hands of the Spaniards, nor in those of the Huguenots, and still 

" less in those of the Duke de Bouillon Then after the 

" Princesses had embraced each other — after they had shed many 
" tears at their separation — after the young Duke had received 
" all the blessings and the caresses which seemed due alike to 
" his tender age, to the distressing journey which he was about 
" to take, to the sprightliness of his temper, and to his graceful 
" appearance while thus disguised as a girl — after all those who 
" were present at this cruel separation had embraced those who 
" were going away, with many tears and sighs — then the journey 
" commenced."* 

The coach for this journey, drawn by only two horses, but 
in which harness had been put for four others, had been sent 
early in the evening as if for a drive to the entrance of the forest. 
A little while after four horses were taken out, as though to the 
water to drink, but they were in reality led towards the carriage. 
Then Clemence de Maille left the chateau on foot, followed by 
her son, her physician Bourdelot, and the ladies of Tourville, 
Gouville, and Chan grand. She was escorted by two equerries, 
one of whom carried the young Prince in his arms, and was, in 
case of an attack, to plunge with him into the depths of the 
forest. A century after there was still shown at Chantilly, with 
interest, the road which was taken by this little party : it was 
* Memoirs of Lenet, vol. i., p. 197 



108 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. v. 

by the side of a very ancient building called Bukan, between 
the gardens and the village.* Having arrived at the opening of 
the forest, the ladies entered the coach and took the road by 
Louvres. At the same time Lenet, leading a few other at- 
tendants, had mounted on horseback ; but not to give any sus- 
picion by too large an escort, he passed by another road to the 
right. Let us here borrow again the words of his journal : — 
" We all set off at eleven o'clock at night, and arrived at Paris 
" by the Gate of St. Denis, at the same time as the Princess by 
" that of St. Martin, and we rejoined each other at four o'clock 
" in the morning at the Gate of St. Victor (on the other side of 
" the Seine). We sent for a train of horses belonging to the 
" Princess from the Hotel de Conde, which met us at Juvisy 
" and served as a relay. We always moved only two and two, 
"at as great a distance from each other as we could, so as 
" always to keep the carriage in sight. We always stopped at 
" different hostelries, as though we were not acquainted. Madame 
" de Tourville called herself Madame de la Vallee ; and all the 
" other persons in the coach passed as belonging to her family. 
u Thus we arrived at four o'clock in the afternoon at Angerville 
" la Riviere, the house of the President Perrault, who was a 
" prisoner in the cause of the Princes."f 

Lenet had reckoned upon finding there the horses of the Pre- 
sident, and of making use of them to push on ten leagues further ; 
but they had been sold against his previous orders. The party 
were therefore obliged to sleep that night at Angerville. On 
the next day, the 13th of April, the Princess passed close by the 
Chateau of Choisy aux Loges, a house belonging to the Marquis 
de Montespan, who had great possessions in Gascony, and who 
leaned secretly to the Prince's party. Lenet went to see the 
Marquise, and dissuaded her from receiving the Princess at her 
house, lest it should injure the interests of her husband ; .but she 
came to pay her duty to her at a hermitage near the road, where 
she offered her everything in her power, even to follow her. 
Clemence accepted nothing but a relay of horses to continue her 
journey. 

That same day the Princess arrived on the banks of the Loire, 

* Essai sur le Grand Conde, par Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde, p. 93. 
f Memoirs of Lenet, vol. i., p. 200. 



1650.] THE CHATEAU DE SULLY. 109 

opposite the village and Chateau of Sully, then inhabited by the 
grandson of the great Minister, who had been dead only nine 
years. Those who go there now, would find, alas ! the family 
extinct — the Chateau gloomily silent and in ruins ! But who 
could contemplate without emotion the smallest relic of the abode 
of him who was not only the enlightened and laborious servant, 
but the ever faithful friend, of a hero, his master — that master 
the glory of France and the terror of Spain ? Let the traveller 
too be mindful as he gazes, that what may diminish our admira- 
tion for the Chateau should increase it for the Minister. I learn 
from the details of the last years of his life, that there are in 
the second court of Sully's house several mounds and enormous 
heaps of earth, which one can easily perceive were formed by 
human hands. This expense, which is entirely unproductive of 
ornament, and has even a disagreeable effect, surprises those 
who do not know that the Duke de Sully found no other means 
of employing a number of poor people who in a time of great 
need and scarcety asked for work.* 

It was at Sully that the Princess embarked to cross the Loire ; 
and as there was only one little boat, she had afterwards to wait 
some time till her carriage and horses had also crossed. During 
this time the people assembled along the bank of the river, on 
seeing so large an equipage ; and, in spite of her disguise, Cle- 
mence was recognised by a valet of the Duke de Sully, who ran 
off to announce it to his master. " We sat down," says Lenet, 
" on some large stones which lay there, as though we had all 
" been of an equal condition in life ; and even, to remove all 
" suspicions on the rank of the Princess, she sat upon my knees, 
u when of a sudden the valet of the Duke de Sully calling me 
" by my name, I had not the presence of mind to avoid turning 
" my head. I hastened, however, to assure him that he mistook 
" me for some one else, but he told me that he knew me very 
" well, and that he wished to speak a word with me. Having 
" drawn me aside, he told me that he recognised the Princess 
" perfectly, although thus disguised, and dressed in coarse clothes, 
" and he named all the suite to me, and added that he saw we 
" were making our escape : that he offered me from his master, 
" who he said was the Prince's very humble servant, a retreat 
* Memoirs of Sully, vol. iiL, p. 420, ed. 1747. 



110 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. v. 

" in his Chateau, and eighteen thousand livres which he had re- 
" ceived from his estates. I ran instantly to apprize the Princess 
" of this, who thanked him extremely, and drew from her finger 
" a ring, which she gave him without accepting any of his offers. 
" I had, however, some wish to take the money, of which we 
" stood much in need, for all our finances were reduced to about 
" five hundred pistoles, which the Princess had, and about 
" twenty thousand livres which I had partly borrowed and partly 
c * raised upon some plate which I had sold." 

Th ; s same day, the 13th, Clemence went as far as Argent, 
a little town in Berry. One may still see there a fine Chateau ;* 
it then belonged to the Sieur de Clermont, an old servant of the 
Prince, and father-in-law of Mautour, who was the Governor of 
Montrond. He received the Princess very well, as also her 
suite, and sent on his horses during the night ; so that Clemence 
found them next day on arriving at a Chateau within sight of 
Bourges. She contemplated from a distance, but without ven- 
turing to approach them, the towers of that great and noble 
city, where her husband's youth had been spent, and where 
Charles VII. — " the King of Bourges," as he was at first called 
by his enemies, " the Victorious," as France afterwards pro- 
claimed him — had long found an asylum, and fixed his Court. 
In this Chateau, which belonged to the Chevalier de Rhodes, the 
Princess dined, procured another relay of horses, and sent back 
the equipage of Madame de Montespan with a letter of thanks : 
then continuing her journey, she arrived safely at Montrond 
that same evening about midnight. " The haste," says Lenet, 
" which we made was as great as was possible in a coach with a 
" lady and a child of their rank, having been as much taken by 
" surprise as we were, and without having sent on any relays. 
" Every one arrived in perfect health, in spite of the want of sleep 
" and the fatigue ; and every effort was made during the journey 
" to assuage the Princess's grief, and to divert her as much as 
" possible." 

The Chateau of Montrond had been built by the Seigneurs 

of Albret, and restored by the great Duke de Sully ; but under 

Louis XIII. the Duke was obliged to yield it to the old Prince 

of Conde. . Seated amidst some of the gayest and most smiling 

* Guide Pittoresque en France, vol. iv., Dept. du Cher, p. 14. 



1650.] THE PRINCESS ARRIVES AT MONTROND. Ill 

views in France, Montrond crowns the summit of a rocky hill 
just above the little town of St. Amand, and between the two 
rivers of the Cher and the Marmande, which join at its foot.* 
According to Lenet, in another part of his journal, the fortifi- 
cations were then very numerous, and were disposed as an amphi- 
theatre and in stories.f The Chateau could be reached only by 
one road, which was winding and cut in the rock. J Within there 
was an inexhaustible well ; and with a sufficient garrison one 
could defend oneself against an entire army. But, when the 
Princess arrived there, only a handful of men were to be found ; 
there was neither artillery, ammunition, nor money. They were 
surrounded by enemies ; and some violent step of the new 
Governor of Berry, the Count de St. Aignan, was to be feared. 
Under these circumstances, unshrinking courage and prudent 
counsels were more needed than ever. Clemence possessed the 
former, and knew how to discriminate the latter. The next day 
after her arrival she sent very early for Lenet, in the presence 
of Madame de Tourville. M My age," said she to him, " and 
" the small experience I have in affairs, the esteem which I enter- 
" tain towards you, and the knowledge I have of your affection 
" and fidelity in the service of the Prince my husband, oblige 
" me to confide to you the principal management of everything. 
" Tell me, therefore, what you advise me to do, in the condition 
" in which I find myself? 5 ' 

Lenet, after having humbly thanked the Princess for the 
honour she did him, answered that he had already been turning 
the subject over in his mind during a part of the night ; that he 
thought that she should first despatch a courier to Madame, her 
mother-in-law, to inform her of her arrival, and thus alleviate the 
anxiety which she would probably feel until she received that 
news : in the second place, reconnoitre with the Sieur de Mautour 
the condition of the Chateau, and try to introduce into it by 
degrees all that was wanted : lastly, write to all the friends 
and servants of her House and to the neighbouring gentlemen, 
and continue the negotiations which had been commenced at 

* Guide Pittoresque en France, vol. iv., Dept. du Cher, p. 12. 
f Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 538. 

X Memoirs of Sully, vol. iii., p. 421, ed. 1747. See also the Memoir 
upon Berry in Boulainvilliers, Etat de la. France, vol. ii., p. 212. 



112 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. 



Chantilly. This advice having been approved of by the Princess, 
they all applied themselves to preparing letters and instructions 
which were to be sent next day, the 16th of the month. " One 
" of the principal things," says Lenet, " which we had to wish 
" for was the assembling of the States-General, and it was indeed 
" what we tried to insinuate to everybody." 

It was repeated also on all sides that the Duke d'Enghien was 
the last branch of the Royal Family that was still at liberty, as 
though the residence of the Duke of Orleans at Court had been 
only a kind of imprisonment.* The gentleman sent to the 
Princess Dowager was named Aubigny ; he was at the same time 
to acquaint her how much the want of money was felt by the 
little garrison, and at any rate try to convert into money the 
service of gold plate which she had intended to give them at 
Chantilly. Lenet intrusted him with several other letters for 
Paris : " I wrote word," says he, " to send us some artillery 
" officers .... and also all the pamphlets and pasquinades which 
" were issued against the Cardinal, so that I might distribute 
" them in the provinces. Nothing can be less necessary for 
M persuading any honest people who are ready to serve, because 
" either friendship or interest is their best adviser ; but nothing 
" is more useful for urging on the populace, who imagine nothing 
" for themselves, so that one must stir up their minds by the 
" press, "f 

The gentleman who was despatched to the estates of the Prin- 
cess in Anjou had orders to give four hundred pistoles to 
Dumont, who held Saumur for her, and to send to the Duke de 
la Rochefoucauld a part of the service of plate, together with a 
few of the horses, belonging to the late Marechal de Breze. In 
the south of France Clemence eagerly solicited, but without 
much success, the assistance of the Duke de St. Simon (the 
father of the author of the Memoirs), who was a kinsman by mar- 
riage of the Princess Dowager, and the governor of the fortress 
of Blaye, very important from its neighbourhood to Bordeaux. 
She tried also by letters to awaken the affection of the Count Du 
Dognon, who owed all his fortune to her brother- the Duke de 
Breze, and who still held by his favour the fortified town of 

* Desormeaux, vol. ii., p. 376. 
f Memoirs of Lenet, vol. L, p. 211. 



1G50.] THE PRINCESS AT MONTROND. 113 

Brouage, in spite of all Mazarin's efforts to draw it from 
his hands. But Du Dognon, a thankless and grasping man, 
thought much more of preserving his gains than of proving his 
gratitude. 

The news, however, of the Princess's arrival at Montrond 
was soon spread on all sides, and by the 16th several neighbour- 
ing gentlemen came to pay her their respects. " During the 
" time," says Lenet, " that she resided at Montrond, she received 
" marvellously well all those who visited her, and took great 
" pains to try and enlist every one she could in her service." 
According to another historian — " Of a gentle character, very 
" accessible and pleasing, Clemence de Maille spoke with grace 
" and fluency, and shone to great advantage on all occasions 
" which required presence of mind and prompt decision."* 

That same day they learnt that the Count de St. Aignan had 
set off from Bourges the night before at the head of a squadron 
of cavalry, and that he had traversed all the route which the 
Princess had taken, in the hope of still meeting herself and her 
son. He said, however, that it was only with the design of taking 
prisoner the Chevalier de Rhodes ; that he had received no orders 
from the Court against their Highnesses ; but that if he had met 
them, he would have cut in pieces those who escorted them, and 
have arrested them with all the respect that was due to their 
rank ; and that he had sent to the Court to ask for troops, and 
propose the siege of Montrond. "We had," says Lenet, "put 
" things into such good order for twenty leagues round, and on 
" all the fords and bridges at a distance, that nothing could 
11 happen of which the Princess did not receive early and exact 
" intelligence."! 

The next day, the 17th of April, they received most alarming 
and well-nigh fatal news. The gentlemen shut up at Belle- 
garde had no chief, and consequently were wanting in conduct ; 
and in spite of their proved valour, they became so bewildered 
that they consented to give up this important post without even 
the trenches being opened against them. The capitulation had 
been signed since the 9th, two days before the departure from 
Chantilly ; it stipulated that the town should be ceded on the 

* Anquetil, Intrigue du Cabinet, vol. iii., p. 428. 
t Memoirs of Lenet, vol. i., p. 221. 

I 



114 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. v. 

22nd if no succour were received before that time, but that 
the officers and soldiers of the garrison might retire quietly to 
their homes. Thus the last place which held out in favour of 
Monsieur le Prince in Burgundy was lost.* On the other hand, 
and at the same time, the Princess lost all that she inherited 
from her father, and the only resource of her party in Anjou — the 
Chateau of Saumur. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld had kept his 
promise. Under the pretext of his father's funeral he had as- 
sembled at his Chateau of Verteuil several hundred of his neigh- 
bours and vassals, and had begun his march at their head towards 
Anjou ; but scarcely had he arrived at Lusignan when he heard 
that the officers at Saumur had concluded a private treaty and 
received the Eoyal troops. It was Mazarin's gold, and not his 
arms (though they alleged also their want of provisions), which 
had produced so sudden a capitulation. Thus no other alterna- 
tive remained to La Rochefoucauld than to return to Angou- 
mois, and send away his friends. t 

Clemence having received this bad news in the morning, spent 
all this day at her devotions, praying to God for her son. At night 
she thought it expedient to try and gain time for her defence in 
,the only fortress which remained to her, and to write to Le Tellier, 
Secretary of State, to apologise for her escape. After all, if she 
had not made her journey under the guardianship of Monsieur 
Du Vouldy, she had arrived in the very same province to which 
he was directed to conduct her, she was only one short day's 
journey from Chateauroux, and she could still in some degree 
protest her obedience to the Queen's orders. Some days later she 
.despatched Blanchefort, one of her gentlemen, to carry a letter to 
the Queen herself, in these terms : — 

" Madam, — I should have deferred giving notice to your Ma- 
" jesty of my arrival at this place, and acquainting you that a 
" fever and a cold, from which I had long been suffering at Chan- 
" tilly, have not been powerful enough to prevent my obeying the 
" King's commands with all possible haste. I had resolved to 
" wait for news from Madame my mother-in-law, who had nei- 
r" ther the strength, the health, nor the equipage necessary for 

* Montglat, vol. iii., p. 113. 
t Memoirs of Gourville, vol. L, p. 24, ed. 1782. 



1650.] THE PRINCESS WRITES TO THE QUEEN. 115 

" coming here at the same time as myself, or bringing my nephew, 
" Monsieur de Longueville ; but as I am still uncertain of the 
" time at which she may arrive, I have thought, Madam, that I 
" ought to hasten the moment when I had proposed to myself 
" to acquaint your Majesty with my proceedings, and to convey 
" to the King at the same time my just complaints against the 
" Count de St. Aignan, who, on hearing of my journey, called 
" together an assembly of unknown persons. He traversed the 
" road which I had taken with two hundred horse ; and said 
" publicly at Bourges, that if he had met me he should have ar- 
" rested me and my son, and cut in pieces five or six of my servants 
" who accompanied my coach. I will hope, Madam, that he 
" said this without orders ; but in any case it would have been 
$t strange treatment of a person of my rank, who was conducting 
u her only son, of seven years of age, and who has the honour of 
" belonging to the Royal House, into a private chateau, and on 
" the faith of a lettre de cachet from the King. The Count de St. 
" Aignan, thank God, only met a groom and one of my carriage- 
u horses, which he took to Bourges, where he is publishing that 
" your Majesty is to send him troops to besiege me in consequence 
u of the information which had been given him by express, 
€t that I had placed here some men-at-arms. On which I pro- 
" test to your Majesty, as I have already done to the King, in a 
" letter which I have written to Monsieur Le Tellier, that nothing 
" is more contrary to the truth, that I have in no way altered 
" the former orders, and that there are not above forty men of 
" the usual garrison. I have no other thought than that of 
" praying to God for the prosperity of your Majesties, of 
" bringing up my son in His fear, and trying by my example to 
" give him the same zeal as Monsieur his father always had for 
" the King's service, that of your Majesty, and the good of the 
" State : assuring you, Madam, that I shall close my ears against 
" any proposals which could make me act contrary to these in- 
" tentions, and that I shall never seek any other remedy for the 
" ills which I endure, than in the goodness and justice of your 
" Majesty. It is with this view that I have written to the High 
" Courts of Bourges and Moulins, to beg them to send and 
" have drawn up a P races Verbal on the state of this place, 
" in order that they may render an account to your Majesty, and 

i2 



116 LIFE OF COND& [chap. v. 

" let you see at the same time the falsehood of the Count de 
" St. Aignan's despatches, and the truth of the protestation which 
" I now make of being all my life, 

" Madam, yours, &c, 

" CliAIRE CliEMENCE DE MaILLe'." 

Blanchefort, the bearer of this letter, found the Queen and the 
Cardinal on their road to return from Dijon to Paris. They 
were in haste to get there, in order that they might oppose 
the measures of Turenne and the Duchess de Longueville, who 
had signed at Stenay a treaty with the Spaniards, and were pre- 
paring, in concert with them, to invade the frontiers of Picardy. 
On the other hand, it was not unnatural to despise the power of 
a woman of twenty-two, and a child of seven years of a^e, in the 
recesses of a peaceable province. What danger could Mazarin 
fear on their part, unless indeed they should be driven by ill-usage 
to take some desperate resolution ? Would he then, by going 
to besiege them, make all France believe that the order for their 
retirement into Berry was only a snare to secure their persons ? 
Would he then run the risk of awakening the jealousy of the 
Frondeurs, his new friends, and engendering in the nation a feeling 
of compassion and sympathy for the imprisoned Princes ? " Ne- 
" vertheless, ,, adds Lenet, " I hold that one of the greatest faults 
" that was ever committed by Cardinal Mazarin was that of not 
" bringing before Montrond the King and the troops, which had 
" just been employed in reducing Bellegarde ; for as the season 
" was not far advanced, they might have taken this place before 
" the affairs on the frontier had become pressing."* 

Influenced by the considerations of which I have been speak- 
ing, the Queen received favourably the excuses of the Princess. 
She granted an audience to Blanchefort, made him give her an 
account of the adventures of the journey to Montrond, and 
laughed much at the disguise adopted for deceiving Du Vouldy.f 
She said she had never thought of detaining her good cousin a 
prisoner ; on the contrary, she had written to the Count de St. 
Aignan to respect and honour her residence, provided that nothing 
occurred there which was contrary to the King's service. J 

* Memoirs, vol. i., p. 222. f Letter of Blanchefort to Lenet, April 26, 1650. 
X Letter of the Queen to the Princess of Conde, April 26, 1650. 



1650.1 THE PRINCESS DOWAGER AT PARIS. 117 

Let us now see what had been passing at Chantilly since the 
departure of Clemence. Du Youldy had never conceived the 
smallest suspicion, and the Princess Dowager had continued to 
deceive him till the 16th, when che received an answer from the 
Duke of Orleans, which conveyed to her orders to obey the 
King's commands without delay. Then, although she had not 
yet received any news of her daughter-in-law's journey, she would 
not any longer defer her own. She made her escape that same 
night, accompanied by the Duchess de Chatillon, and she had 
already arrived at Paris before Du Vouldy had the least idea of 
her departure. During ten days the Princess remained hidden 
in the house of Monsieur de Machault, Councillor of Requests, 
waiting for the first general assembly of the Parliament. The 
day having at length come, she repaired to the door of the Great 
Chamber by five o'clock in the morning, followed by the Duchess 
de Chatillon, the Marquis de la Force, and several other friends 
of her House, and holding a petition in her hand, which invoked 
the Declaration of the 24th of October, and claimed the liberty 
of her children. As the Councillors arrived she stopped them, 
with entreaties to take charge of her petition, or to give it their 
support. " As for me," added she with tears, " they want to 
u send me a hundred leagues from hence and shut me up in a 
f< wretched prison. Is it not just that I should remain at Paris, 
" to watch over the interests of my unfortunate family? And 
" with what can I be reproached but of being the mother of the 
" Prince of Conde ?" 

Notwithstanding the compassion which the Princess Dowager 
excited, several Councillors refused the dangerous service which 
she asked of them ; but Deslandes Pay en, a brave and blunt man, 
exclaimed that fear should not prevent him from doing his duty, 
and, taking the petition, he read it in the Great Chamber. A 
great murmur arose ; several magistrates wished to go imme- 
diately to the vote. But, considering the importance of the 
affair, the First President insisted that the deliberation should be 
adjourned to the day after the next, and that the Duke of Orleans 
should be invited to take his place at that sitting. Until that 
time her Highness was to continue under the protection of the 
Court, and in the house of one of the Presidents. She chose the 
house of Monsieur de la Grange, which was situated within the 



118 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. v. 

limits of the Palais de Justice. She was conducted thither by- 
deputies from the Company ; and at this news the greater part of 
the nobility at Paris, even those employed in the King's service, 
hastened to visit her.* 

Accordingly, on the day after the next the Duke of Orleans 
came to the meeting. He was accompanied by the confidants who 
then directed him, and who tried to give him courage, the Co- 
adjutor of Paris and the Duke de Beaufort. The Princess was 
waiting for them in the Parquet des Huissiers, mingled with 
the crowd. She stopped Gaston as he passed, and threw herself 
at his feet, imploring justice for herself and her children. Gas- 
ton, not knowing what answer to give her, escaped from her 
hands, muttering some indistinct words. " Then," says Gondy, 
u the Princess asked the Duke de Beaufort to give her his pro- 
" tection! She told me that she had the honour of being my 
" kinswoman ! Monsieur de Beaufort was very much embar- 
" rassed, and I nearly died of shame."f Who indeed would not 
have felt something like compassion on seeing thus humbled and 
tearful, before her declared enemies, the daughter of Mont- 
morency and the mother of Conde ? 

But compassion has little hold over a mind so cowardly as 
Gaston's, or one so ambitious as Gondy's. It was in vain 
that they saw this Princess, once so haughty and proud — a new 
Niobe J — lowly prostrate at their feet. Deslandes Pay en having 
once again read her petition, the Duke of Orleans began to speak, 
and said that the Queen did not at all intend to use any harsh- 
ness towards Madame la Princesse, but that her Highness had 
been ordered to leave Chantilly and to go farther from the fron- 
tier, because they had intercepted one of her footmen charged 
with letters exhorting the garrison of Bellegarde to remain 
firm. Other letters for the Governor of Saumur had also been 
intercepted ; and the Duke then placed before the eyes of the 
Company a copy of the treaty which had just been concluded with 

* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iii., p. 456, ed. 1723. 

f Memoirs of Retz, vol. ii., p. 81, ed. 1817. See also Count St. Aulaire's 
History of the Fronde, vol. ii., p. 200. 

I " Heu quantum hsec Niobe, Niobe distabat ab ilia : 



11 Invidiosa suis, at nunc miseranda vel hosti !" 

Ovid, Met, lib. vi., ver 273. 



1650.] PREPARATIONS FOR WAR AT MONTROND. 119* 

the Spaniards by Madame de Longueville. This last state-paper 
seemed an unanswerable argument. The magistrates, full of in- 
tegrity and national feeling, viewed with horror any combination 
with the enemies of the state. No voice was now raised in de- 
fence of the mother of Madame de Longueville. She herself felt 
that she must give up all hopes of any support from the Par- 
liament, and left Paris that same night, to take refuge in a 
neighbouring village. All that she could obtain a few days later 
from the Queen was the permission to reside with her relation 
the Duchess at her chateau of Chatillon sur Loing, beyond 
Montargis. It was not long ere she fell ill from grief; she 
ceased from that time to struggle against so many reverses, and 
thought only of sparing as much as possible her dearly beloved 
strong box. Notwithstanding all her affection for her children, 
notwithstanding the entreaties of her daughter-in-law and Lenet, 
she would not send them the smallest assistance in money ; even 
the service of gold plate which she had offered to them 
at Chantilly remained in her hands, and she was constantly 
writing to the Governor of Montrond orders not to receive or 
entertain any men-at-arms — an order which he was careful to 
disobey ! 

The young Princess at Montrond was not, however, entirely 
without resources. Some farmers of the neighbourhood and of 
the Duchy of Chateauroux brought their little sums ; the trea- 
surer of her House at Bourges sent her eight thousand livres, and 
she also received two thousand pistoles which had been destined 
for the assistance of Bellegarde ; whilst in Anjou they were 
melting the plate and distributing the horses belonging to her 
father. Her preparations for the defence of the Chateau were 
carried on with great activity. She sent an officer to have gre- 
nades made in the iron-works of the Nivernois ; another to buy 
lead in different places ; and she was treating at the same time 
with one of the principal merchants at Bourges for bringing in 
secretly all the other things necessary for the place. But she 
feared that the loss of Bellegarde and Saumur would slacken the 
zeal of her friends. She could no longer reckon upon Du Dog- 
non at Brouage or St. Simon at Blaye. She was informed from 
a thousand different quarters that the Dukes de Bouillon and 
de la Rochefoucauld were negotiating with the Court ; and 



120 LIFE OF COND& [chap. v. 

Clemence did not know whether it was, like hers, a pretended 
negotiation to gain time, or whether they really intended to 
change sides. She herself saw from her window the C:>unt 
de St. Aignan come with a troop of cavalry to reconnoitre the fort 
of Montrond.* She even learnt that he had gone as far as Cha- 
teauroux, and given orders all along the river of the Creuse for 
the arrest of the Princess, if she attempted to pass into Guyenne 
or Poitou. Indeed, the situation of Clemence for several days 
appeared so critical that the Marquis de Valencay, one of the 
principal nobles in Berry, who was a partisan of the Princess, 
and who had come to Montrond to concert measures with her, 
saw no other alternative to propose to her than an escape from 
the country ; and he offered to conduct her disguised by the 
Loire to Nantes, where she could embark for Holland. *f But 
the Princess, the worthy wife of a hero, declared that she would 
never take to flight while there still remained a single castle to 
defend, or a single district to raise. " I hope everything,' y 
she wrote to the Princess Dowager, " from the mercy of 
" God, who is always the protector of the innocent."{ 

This noble confidence was soon justified by new gleams of suc- 
cess. Up to this time she had been surrounded by less than fifty 
men-at-arms for her sole defence ; in a very little while at least 
six hundred officers and soldiers of the garrison of Bellegarde 
arrived in small bands. Several gentlemen devoted to her cause 
hastened from different parts of France. " Six weeks after 
'I married," says Bussy Eabutin, the author of the Satires, 
i Tavannes, Chatellux, and I went together to Montrond. I 
c remember that as we were posting thither we had changed 
8 our names, and that I had with me a volunteer from Brittany 
' named Lannay Lays, who was full of self-conceit, and 
i fancied that it was like a man of quality to change his 
i name. Whilst he was thinking of another by which he would 
1 call himself, Tavannes, who was always twitting him upon 
; his vanity, said to him, ' Why, Sir, you are surely joking in 
' thinking that your name would be recognised ; if you will 
i take that which I have taken, I will call myself Lannay Lays, 

* Petition to the Parliament of Bordeaux, June 1, 1650. 
t Lenet, vol. i.. p. 231. But this passage is a little tainted by the jealousy 
which Lenet scarcely conceals against this riyal adviser. 
J Lenet, vol. i., p. 303. 



1650.] MONTROND THREATENED WITH A SIEGE. 121 

" and I should feel quite sure of remaining better disguised than 
" any other of our party !' "* 

In order not to arouse the jealousy of the Court, Clemen ce 
took care not to detain her soldiers or her gentlemen at the Cha- 
teau. " Madame la Princesse," says Lenet, " did not permit 
" any one to remain more than one day at Montrond. She 
" always told them that as she would not and could not under- 
" take any thing by force, she did not wish to raise the smallest 
" suspicion. She took from every one two directions, so that 
u she might write to them when she had occasion for their ser- 
" vices, and sent them away as well satisfied as she could."! Le- 
net lodged some of them in the neighbouring town of St. Amand, 
and the Princess sent the greater number to the other chateaux 
and manor-houses belonging to the Prince of Conde in Berry. 
As for those who came from Guyenne or Poitou, she sent them 
back to their provinces, where she still hoped to be able to kindle 
a civil war. When, therefore, the Presidial de Bourges, accord- 
ing to her petition, sent deputies to Montrond to certify as to the 
state of the fortress, they found no appearance of change. 

What Clemen ce most feared was to see the siege of Montrond 
commenced before she had time to complete her preparations 
for defence. She was relieved from this fear on the 28th of 
April, for the Count de St. Aignan having received new orders 
from the Court, sent a gentleman with a letter to her, assuring 
her of his respect and his forbearance, provided that she held 
no assembly at Montrond, and listened to no proposal against the 
King's service. " That same night/' says Lenet, " the Princess, 
" who was lighter of heart and with her mind more at ease than it 
" had hitherto been, resolved to go and sup in the park with the 
" young Duke, having learnt that I had made preparations in a 
" shaded avenue for the officers and persons of quality who were 
" there. She brought thither all her suite, and it was the first 
u time that she had taken any amusement since the imprisonment 
" of the Princes."{ 

But the good news of that day was not yet over. After 

* Memoirs of Bussy, vol. i., p. 258, ed. 1 768. Bussy did not reach Montrond. 
until the month of June, and after the Princess had taken her departure. See 
Ms letter to Madame de Se'vigne of July 2, 1650. 

f Memoirs, vol. L, p. 261. 

J lb., p. 265. 



122 LIFE OF CONDlL [chap, v 

supper the Princess was agreeably surprised by the arrival of 
another gentleman from the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. He 
announced that his master was to have an interview with the Duke 
de Bouillon at Marquessac in Perigord, and that they both 
undertook to declare themselves in her favour, with all their 
neighbours and vassals, if the Princess promised to put herself at 
their head, and bring her son with her. " According to the 
" ideas of those times," says M. de Sismondi, " a Prince of the 
" Blood was in some degree a warranty for the safety of those who 
" took up arms in his name : they were not henceforward looked 
" upon quite in the light of rebels." * Another historian of 
those times adds very justly, that " Loyalty to the King was 
" then a kind of faith without works, which did not imply 
" any obedience to his Majesty's orders." f He might also 
have remarked, that religion itself was then considered only ac- 
cording to its political aspects. The two Dukes were negotiating 
at the same time, and with equal readiness, with the Marechal 
de la Force, chief of the Protestant party in the south, and with 
the Marquis de Bourdeilles, who was at the head of the Catholic 
gentlemen in Perigord. On the other hand, the Duke de St. 
Simon and the Count Du Dognon held out some hopes, and they 
also received assurances from the Prince of Tarente for his 
father the Duke de la Tremouille, and for his town of Taillebourg 
in Poitou. But above all, they hoped to be able to draw into 
their revolt the Parliament and the body of the bourgeoisie of 
the town of Bordeaux, by their hatred to the tyrannical Gover- 
nor whom the Queen had imposed upon them (the Duke d'Eper- 
non), and their gratitude for the protection they had formerly 
received from the House of Conde. It was the support of one 
of these High Courts of Justice which alone at that period could 
give credit and coherence to a party, On any decree from a 
Parliament the public coffers were opened without scruple, and 
private individuals paid without complaint ; whilst the great 
lords, who had no towns, no magazines, and no ready money, 
could, on descending from their strongholds, make their armies 
subsist only by pillage and oppression. Far from having any 
such quarrels on the ground of personal interest, or such jealousies 

* Histoire de France, vol. xxiv., p. 317. 
■f St. Aulaire, Histoire de la Fronde, vol. ii., p. 167. 



1650.] HUNTING PARTIES. 123 

for frivolous amours, as were constantly dividing the nobles, after 
they had sometimes united against a common enemy, the magi- 
strates, ever firm, ever devoted to their Company, and sometimes 
even thinking of the welfare of the State, had on their side the 
veneration of the multitude, and knew how to maintain, even in 
the very midst of a revolt, the appearances of legal order. 

It was not very difficult for the Princess to see that the assist- 
ance with which she flattered herself, depended more on hopes 
than on promises, and might perhaps fail her in the moment of 
danger. Still, for the service of her husband and her son, she 
did not hesitate to undertake the perilous part which was pro- 
posed to her, by giving the signal for a civil war, and placing 
herself at the head of the army. Besides, she received secret 
intelligence from several quarters, that the assurances of the 
Queen and the Count de St. Aignan were not to be trusted, and 
that they had on the contrary sent orders to the Marechal de la 
Meilleraie in Poitou gradually to move forward his troops for the 
siege of Montrond. She wrote therefore to concert with the Dukes 
the day and the place where she could join them in Auvergne. 
During this time she redoubled her efforts to furnish Montrond 
with provisions of both ammunition and victual, intending to 
assemble there all the soldiers who were now scattered in the 
neighbourhood, and leave them under the command of the Mar- 
quis de Persan, whom she expected. It was also necessary to 
allay all suspicion in the little town of St. Amand upon the 
preparations for the journey, and to accustom both herself and 
her ladies to exercise on horseback. For this double object 
she undertook several hunting-parties in pursuit of roebucks 
round Montrond, she herself and each of her ladies mounting 
on a pillion behind a gentleman, and her son carried by her 
equerry upon a little seat in front of the saddle. She was assisted 
not only by the counsels of the faithful Lenet, but also by those 
of the Count de Coligny, Colonel of the regiment d'Enghien, 
and an officer of great merit, who had just arrived at Montrond. 

It was only to these two persons and to Madame de Tour- 
ville that the Princess confided her plans. Another of her 
attendants, Blinvilliers, her equerry, inspired her with well- 
merited distrust. She doubted his discretion, or perhaps his 
fidelity, and determined to remove him from her presence, by em- 



124 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. v. 

ploying him elsewhere. She therefore entrusted him with a 
letter to her uncle, the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, by whom 
Blinvilliers was well known, wishing on this occasion to awaken 
the affection of her kinsman, implore his kindness, and try to 
make him forget some just causes of displeasure which he had 
formerly received from the Prince of Conde. Here are some 
extracts from the letter which Blinvilliers conveyed : — 

" Sir, — I confess to you that I had always expected some 
" mark of your remembrance, and some proof of your friend- 
" ship, on the subject of the loss of my father ; but finding 
" myself deprived of the comfort of your sympathy in so great 
" a grief, and being quite unable to imagine what can be the 
" cause of your silence, I send this gentleman to you, so that he 
" may inform me of the reason. I am perhaps unfortunate 
" enough to have had some one speak ill of me to your Emi- 
. :t nence, but I am not sufficiently so to have ever been wanting 
" either in friendship or respect for a person so dear to me as 
" yourself. If, however, I have innocently displeased you, Sir, 
" recall to your mind what you are to my son and myself, and 
" what is his and my present situation, and let that remem- 
" brance urge you to be a father to both of us, since God has 
" taken mine from me, and that Monsieur my husband is not in 

" a place where he can take care of us Allow me, 

" my dear uncle, to have at least the consolation of weeping 
" with you, for I own to you that I cannot restrain my grief. 

" I leave to the bearer of this to tell you all our 

" sad news : what took place at the Parliament on the part of 
" Madame my mother-in-law, the state in which I am here, 
" and the continual apprehension which I entertain of seeing 

" myself besieged, with your grand-nephew Your 

" Eminence is so closely allied to us that I am sure I may rely 
" on your good offices to prevent the execution of these evil in- 
" tentions, for which I entreat you, assuring you that I shall 
" be all my life 

" Your very affectionate 

" Claire Clemence de Maille." 

Two other gentlemen were sent in great haste to the Duke de 
Bouillon by different roads, so that if one was arrested, the other 



1650.J THE PRINCESS SETS OUT FROM MONTROND. 125 

might arrive in safety. Both were to tell the Duke, on the part 
of the Princess, that she had resolved to leave Montrond with 
her son on the night of the 8th or 9th ; and that she hoped to ar- 
rive the following Thursday near Salers, in the mountains of Au- 
vergne, where she begged he would be with a sufficient escort 
to conduct her to his Viscounty of Turenne. The same day 
that Clemence had chosen, the 8th of May, her Maid of Honour, 
Miss Gerbier, arrived from Chantilly and related all the details 
of the comedy she had acted there. She declared that she never 
would from this time forward be again separated from her mis- 
tress. Her arrival was a great happiness to Lenet, who had 
fallen passionately in love with her. To prevent any suspicion 
as to the stir which might be remarked at the Chateau, the 
Princess had announced for that same day a great hunting-party 
in pursuit of roebucks, and under this pretext had invited all the 
officers and gentlemen who were distributed about the neigh- 
bourhood. Nearly a hundred and twenty obeyed her summons. 
As it rained, they readily believed that the party was postponed 
till the evening, in the hope of fine weather, and waited without 
suspecting anything extraordinary. All at once the Governor 
of the Chateau was commanded to close the wicket immediately, 
and not to let any one go out without a written order signed by 
the Princess or Lenet. At the same time Clemence ordered that 
supper should be served to the officers in the great saloon, and 
that it should be announced to them that she would, after their 
repast, communicate something to them which concerned the 
service of the Princes. 

Every one was waiting impatiently for this news, when 
they saw the Princess enter, leading her son by the hand. With 
great emotion, but still with firmness and courage, she ex- 
plained to them her design. " I go," added she, " with very 
" great regret at separating myself and my son from so many 
" brave men, to whom I would confide my life and his. But 
" I retain at least the consolation of leaving this important for- 
" tress of Montrond — the only resource of our afflicted House — in 
" the hands of gentlemen of your merit. You will know how to 
" shed generously your blood for its defence, and give it back 
" one day into the hands of that Prince who loved you so well, 
" and whom you aided in gaining so many battles, glorious to 



126 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. v. 

■ 

M the State, and repaid to himself by a cruel prison. It now 
" only remains for me to recommend you to maintain amongst 
" yourselves harmony, good understanding, and friendship — to 
" ask for yours, and assure you of mine." Then she had her in- 
structions (which were already prepared and signed) read aloud. 
She distributed them separately to each person ; they swore, with 
tears, to observe them faithfully. The Princess then embraced, 
one after the other, the superior officers ; as did also the young 
Duke d'Enghien, repeating with a very good grace a little phrase 
which he had been taught, " That he recommended the liberty 
" of his father to all of them, and vengeance against Mazarin ; 
" and that he promised to love them all his life." It was near 
the stroke of midnight ere the Princess at last tore herself away 
from so many faithful servants to enter her coach with her 
ladies. Her escort, counting both the guards and lackeys, made 
altogether about fifty horsemen : they marched all night long. 
At the dawn of day Clemence sent back her carriage, with 
Madame de Changrand, to join the rest of her equipages, which 
were going by Poitou. She herself without delay mounted on a 
pillion behind the Count de Coligny. The other ladies followed 
her example ; the young Prince was carried by her equerry ; 
and it was thus that they rapidly pursued their journey. The 
greatest activity was necessary on this first day to avoid the 
Count de St. Aignan, who, if apprized of the project, might go 
in pursuit of them. To prevent any such tidings from reaching 
him, she had left directions at Montrond not to allow any one 
to leave the Chateau until forty-eight hours had elapsed since 
her departure. In spite of all this care, however, St. Aignan 
received some intelligence which put him in motion with his 
cavalry ; but deceived by the direction of the equipages, he fol- 
lowed them into Poitou, and took possession of them. Not 
finding the Princess with her carriages, however, he afterwards 
sent them forward to her. 

The first day of her journey Clemence went to dine at Viersac, 
passed the river Cher at Chambon, and stopped to sleep at 
Marcillat, at the house of an old gentleman, who, recognising 
Coligny, and surprised to see so many people, asked him what 
it all meant. Coligny replied that it was a young lady of rank, 
whom he was carrying off and taking into Auvergne, where he 



1650.] THE PKINCESS AND HER ARMY. 127 

was to marry her ; and this answer, quite conformable with the 
manners of those times, excited no suspicion. 

The next day the little party, making a circuit in order to 
avoid the mountains of the Puy de Dome, traversed the Limagne 
d'Auvergne, and passed the river Allier, on a ferry near Pont 
du Chateau. Clemence was received with great magnificence by 
the Marchioness de Boullier, in her chateau of Montaigu ; and the 
following day, the 11th of May, pushed on as far as Lempde. 
On the 12th she climbed by steep and rocky paths amongst the 
mountains of Cantal, and went to sleep at the village of Dienne, 
at the house of the Count de Cavillac. Fatigued with her 
journey, Clemence would, however, continue it in a litter ; and 
on the 13th she joined the advanced guards of the Dukes de 
Bouillon and de la Rochefoucauld.* The next day she met 
the Dukes themselves, in a plain near the village of Anglar, at 
the head of a great many gentlemen and eight squadrons of 
cavalry ; then she mounted her horse to receive them and to pre- 
sent to them her son, who said to them with a very good grace, 
" I am not now, in truth, any longer afraid of Mazarin, since 
" I find you here with so many brave men ; and I now hope for 
" my dear Papa's liberty entirely from their valour and yours." 
This little compliment from a child of seven years old was 
received with cries of enthusiasm. These acclamations were 
redoubled when they saw the mother and son, hat in hand, ride 
down the ranks. Then everybody, with swords drawn and 
waving, made a thousand confused and passionate protestations 
of dying in their service. Then arose, for the first time, that 
war-cry which was often heard afterwards repeated in the streets 
of Bordeaux, in those of Paris, and all over the kingdom — " Long 
" life to the King and the Princes, and down with Mazarin !" f 
On this night the Princess slept at Argentat, a little town on 

* " Madame la Princesse and Monsieur her son at length arrived, after 
" having endured fatigues almost insupportable to persons whose age and 
" whose sex were so ill adapted to them." — (Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld, 
p. 130, ed. J804.) "She passed through several provinces by rough and 
" difficult roads, more than once obliged to sleep at nights exposed to wind 
" and rain, lest if she entered into any town she should be arrested." — (Peti- 
tion to the Parliament of Bordeaux, June I, 1650.) 

f Lenet, vol. i., p. 343. The expression which I have rendered " Down 
" with Mazarin !" is far more energetic in the original, and denotes the 
coarseness of tone and language at that period. 



128 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. v. 

the Dordogne, belonging to the Duke de Bouillon ; and the 

next day she arrived in good time at his Chateau of Turenne. 

" It is only just," says Lenet, " that I should record the mag- 

" nificence and the cordiality with which the Princess was 

" treated there. She entered with all her cavalry and the 

" nobles of whom I have spoken, and was received with the 

" firing of cannon. There was every morning and evening a 

" table for her alone ; another for the Duke, her son ; and one 

" for Madame de Tourville, where the other ladies also were 

" entertained — each served in different apartments ; and in the 

" great saloon there were four tables of twenty-five covers, all 

" magnificently served, and without more noise and confusion 

" than that which necessarily arose when they began to take 

" away the first courses, and which increased by degrees, until 

" most of the guests were in a state rather approaching to in- 

" toxication. They began and ended the healths with that of the 

" Prince of Conde: it was drunk standing, kneeling, and in all 

u manner of ways, but always uncovered and sword in hand. 

" The Duke de Bouillon never failed to begin by a protestation 

" of dying in his service, and never sheathing his sword until he 

" saw him, with the Prince of Conti and the Duke de Longue- 

" ville, restored to liberty. He drank these healths sometimes 

" in one, sometimes in two or three bumpers ; sometimes in 

" glasses, sometimes in goblets, according to the German custom ; 

" and they were always followed by promises and protestations of 

" assistance from his gentlemen : all the servants did the same. 

" This fashion of drinking became common even amongst the 

" troops. The expenses of the Princess's suite and equipages 

" were all defrayed ; and I cannot think how the Duke was able 

" to furnish money for such an enormous expense, in the state to 

" which his affairs had fallen, and after all the misfortunes which 

" he had undergone since his imprisonment and the loss of Sedan. 

" He gave all the amusements and diversions to the Princess that 

u he could. The neighbourhood visited her ; the country people 

u came to dance before her : she played, and every one tried to 

" amuse her by some pleasantry." * 

* Lenet, vol. i., p. 376. Here follows a description of Turenne, which 
dates from 1718 : — " The Chateau d^ Turenne is strongly seated on a high 
" rock, not unlike a ship in shape, and with two great forests beside it, nine 
" leagues in length.'' — (Corneille, Diet , vol. iii.) 



1650.] THE COLOUR ISABELLE. 129 

But no amusements could distract the attention of Clemence 
from her sole and worthy object — the deliverance of her impri- 
soned husband. She never showed more activity of mind nor 
more application in affairs than during the eight days which she 
passed at Turenne. The fetes which were given were only wel- 
come as enabling her to become better acquainted with the prin- 
cipal gentlemen, and u to caress them, each in proportion to his 
" rank and merit ;" whilst in private she had formed a little 
council, composed only of herself, the two Dukes, and Lenet, in 
which all affairs were decided. She levied nearly a thousand 
men in her duchy of Fronsac, with orders to march to Libourne, 
where she had some secret partisans. She sent a private agent 
into Spain. She wrote once more, in the most pressing terms, to 
the Marechal de la Force, to the Duke de St. Simon, and to the 
Count Du Dognon. A circular to many other gentlemen an- 
nounced that she had come amongst them " to put my son out of 
" reach of the violence of Cardinal Mazarin, who has everywhere , 
" caused us to be pursued by his troops." 

At this appeal, civil war broke out in all directions. The 
gentlemen everywhere descended from their fortresses, assembled 
their vassals, and girded on the scarf of Isabelle ; which colour, 
a sort of yellow, had been chosen by Conde for his own. It 
owes its name to a very curious circumstance. When the 
Spaniards were besieging Ostend, in 1601, the Archduchess 
Isabella, wishing to encourage the troops, and thinking that suc- 
cess was near at hand, made a vow of never changing her linen 
before she entered the town. Unfortunately for this Princess, 
the siege lasted three years longer.- It may be conceived that 
during this time her linen lost something of its original bright- 
ness ; and her ladies, to console her, and to follow her example, 
had their linen dyed of a colour which afterwards became the 
fashion, and which was called Isabelle. 

On the other hand, the Duke d'Epernon, who commanded 
for the King in the province, no longer dared show his face at 
Bordeaux, his principal town, in consequence of the hatred 
which his tyranny had inspired. He had retired to Agen, where 
he lived openly with a woman of the lowest extraction, named 
Nanon, who, with little beauty and less talent, had found the art 
of absolutely governing him, " by admiring him all day, and 

K 



130 LIFE OF COND& [chap. v. 

" treating him like a prince ;" and who, by the traffic she made 
of his favour, had amassed a fortune of upwards of two millions 
of livres. On hearing of the muster in the Viscounty of 
Turenne, Epernon hastened to assemble his troops, which were 
less numerous, but much better, than those of the Princess of 
Conde. He confided the command of them to the Chevalier de 
la Valette, his bastard brother ; and his advanced guard, com- 
posed of a company of gendarmes, pushed on as far as Brive 
la Gaillarde, and took possession of that little town, only two 
leagues distant from the Chateau of Turenne. From the win- 
dows of her apartment Clemence could discern the serried ranks 
and white scarfs of her enemies. But the Duke de Bouillon 
was not the man to suffer such a defiance upon his own estate. 
He had the alarm sounded instantly in the four hundred villages 
of his Viscounty of Turenne. The country people flew to arms ; 
and the Duke, at the head of an imposing force, appeared before 
the walls of Brive. "It is not surely," exclaims Lenet, " in 
" that country that the proverb can have taken its origin, Mt is 
" the order of Monsieur de Bouillon — when he speaks, no one 
" moves ;' for I never saw more prompt obedience." Thus 
supported, the Duke caused to be carried and placed before each 
gate a great number of faggots, and announced to the magistrates, 
that if they did not surrender immediately, with all the strangers 
whom they had received, the town would be set on fire, and 
given up to pillage. This menace had its due effect. After 
several parleys, the officers of the Royal troops were allowed to 
retire with their arms and baggage ; but the soldiers remained 
prisoners, and the greater number consented to enlist in the 
service of the Princess. Such was the commencement of the 
war in Guyenne, and such also was the first advantage gained by 
the Princes' party since their imprisonment. 



1650.] THE PRINCESS AND HER ARMY. 131 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Princess descends the Dordogne — Action at Monclar — Popular rising 
at Bordeaux in her favour — She enters the City — She induces the Parlia- 
ment to espouse her cause — Her able and intrepid conduct — Negotiations 
with Spain — Arrival of Don Joseph Ozorio at Bordeaux — Sanguinary- 
Insurrection repressed by the Princess — Les Jurats — Siege of Bordeaux 
by the Queen Regent and the Royal Army — Attack of L' lie St. George 
— Conde attempts to escape from Vincennes — He is transferred to the 
Chateau of Marcoussy. 

u Till now," says Lenet, " the Princess of Conde had but 
" acted in secret ; she had only escaped from Chantilly and 
" Montrond ; she had concealed her designs from the Court, and 
" even from her own friends and partisans ; now her resentment 
" was avowed : all was clear to sight. She is marching at the 
" head of an army ; she is seeking an asylum, arras in hand, 
" directing that combination which had been reared so carefully 
" and secretly — I would add, so skilfully, had I not taken 
" myself an active part in these affairs. That combination was 
" glorious to all those who upheld it, and who formed it in a 
" time of grievous depression, after the blow which the imprison- 
" ment of the Princes had dealt upon us, and after the successes 
" which the Cardinal had obtained in Normandy, in Anjou, and 
11 in Burgundy." * 

It was becoming necessary, however, for Clemence to approach 
Bordeaux as quickly as possible. The zeal of her friends in that 
town had in some measure cooled as soon as they heard of her 
junction with the Dukes, and her appearance at the head of an 
army. Respect for the laws was always their predominant maxim ; 
they would willingly give an asylum to oppressed innocence, but 
they did not wish to make common cause with ambitious nobles, 
often in rebellion, and always ready to form an alliance with Spain. 
The Duke de St. Simon, having entirely changed his party, never 

* Memoirs of Lenet, vol. u, p. 380. 

k 2 



132 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

ceased writing to them from Blaye, that to receive the Princess 
would be their ruin, and that they must avoid it at all risks. 
Her arrival before their walls could alone, perhaps, re-establish 
their former warmth of friendship. 

Animated by this hope, Clemence hastened her departure from 
Turenne, which she fixed for the 22nd of May. Two hours 
before sunrise, having heard mass in the chapel belonging to the 
Chateau, she descended into the plain, where she found the two 
Dukes, their guards, and the principal gentlemen on horseback, 
around two coaches which were waiting for her. She entered 
the first with her son and her ladies ; the second served as a con- 
veyance for the younger children of the Duke de Bouillon. Then 
they began their march to Montfort, on the Dordogne, where the 
general meeting was appointed to take place. Altogether, infantry 
and cavalry, there were only two thousand four hundred men. A 
council of war was held at night, and on the following day the 
little army continued their march by land, whilst the Princess 
embarked in a boat on the Dordogne ; five other boats followed 
her, containing her coaches, the children of the Duke de Bou- 
illon, and a hundred musketeers for her escort. Wherever she 
passed, the villagers on the banks of the river were touched at 
the sight of the wife and the son of the great Conde steering in 
a little bark towards a tempestuous future. With tears in their 
eyes they expressed their blessings, and wished her all kinds 
of prosperity. At Benac she received a visit on the river from 
the Seigneur of that place, who excused himself, on the ground 
of his advanced age, for not following her, but assured her 
that he meant to make his sons mount on horseback and join 
her army. At last she reached Limeuil, a little town com- 
manded by a fortified castle, and built upon the confluence of the 
Dordogne and the Vezere. There she disembarked, and rejoined 
her troops, which she found increased by two hundred horse. 

There also Clemence and the Dukes received the news that the 
Royal army, commanded by La Yalette, was before them, and in- 
tercepted their passage. As soon as he had heard of their having 
left Turenne, La Yalette, who had pushed on as far as Terras- 
sons, had left that town, and was marching towards Bergerac, to 
cut off their road to Bordeaux. At this intelligence the two 
Dukes instantly determined upon giving battle. Leaving the 



1650.] ACTION AT MONCLAR. 133 

Princess and her suite at Limeuil, and putting themselves at the 
head of the army, they marched all that night, which was a very 
dark one, and on the following day met the Epernonistes (it 
was thus that they always chose to call them) encamped near 
the village of Monclar. They were separated from them by 
a deep and miry stream, which flows from thence towards the 
Dordogne ; but without allowing themselves to be discouraged 
by this obstacle, the Dukes fell with such impetuosity upon 
the vanguard of the enemy, that they completely routed them, 
and they drew with them in their flight all the rest of the army.* 
Upwards of a hundred and sixty of their soldiers were cut to 
pieces, many were taken prisoners, and the remainder escaped 
at full speed behind the ramparts of Bergerac. All their baggage, 
carriages, and mules were taken, as well as all their coin, with 
the plate belonging to the Chevalier de La Yalette. The spoil 
was estimated at three hundred thousand livres, more than one 
officer receiving twelve hundred louis d'or for his share. In 
the military chest of the Chevalier de La Yalette were found all 
the letters which he had received from the Duke d'Epemon, 
with a minute of the answers, and some copies of the letters 
from the Queen and Cardinal Mazarin. Several of these letters 
were against the interests of the Parliament and the town of Bor- 
deaux, and against the honour of the Marquis de la Force, and 
several other persons of rank in the province ; the Dukes there- 
fore hastened to send these letters in the originals to Bordeaux, 
and copies to all those interested in them. They sent also to 
the Duke de St. Simon a copy of a certain lettre de cachet 
from the King, which was supposed to have been written to the 
Chevalier de La Valette, and to have been captured with his equi- 
page, by which the King gave him orders to make every prepa- 
ration to take Blaye by surprise, and establish a new governor 
there. Lenet adds, u that afterwards the pretended original was 
" shown to several of our friends at Bordeaux; but the truth is, 
" that some one who shall be nameless had with a certain drug 
" erased all the writing of a real lettre de cachet, and had then 
u filled up the blank with what I have just been saying : so much 
" do emergencies and distresses impel people to act against good 

* Lenet, vol. i., p. 393. La Rochefoucauld, Memoirs, p. 131, ed. 1804. 



134 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

" faith."* It was indeed assailing a deceitful man with similar 
deceit — Mazarin by a Mazarinade 1 

The day after the battle at Monclar the Dukes returned to the 
Princess to confirm this good news to her. On the 26th they 
remained at Limeuil to give the army some repose ; but the next 
day it pursued its march, with the Princess at its head. Leaving 
the course of the Dordogne, and going into the interior of the 
country, they marched straight to the Chateau de Verg, which 
they hoped to enter ; but the Seigneur of the place had raised his 
drawbridge, and refused to receive the Princess. On the other 
hand, they heard that the small-pox was raging in most of the 
cottages in the village, and Clemence fearing it for her son, pre- 
ferred passing the night with him in the open air. This part of 
Perigord was very uncivilized. According to Lenet, the inha- 
bitants were not accustomed to pay either their debts to their 
creditors or their taxes to the King : strange barbarism so near 
the birthplace of Montaigne ! t Even in the midst of this wild 
country the route was not entirely without its charm. " In passing 
" through St. Pont," says Lenet, " the lady of the place gave us 
" a very pretty and excellent collation beneath some trees near a 
" fountain." On the 28th the Princess passed the river L'Isle, 
not far from Mucidan, and the next day reached her duchy of 
Fronsac, and her house of Coutras, where nearly a thousand men, 
levied by her orders and on her estates, came to join her army. 

Coutras ! — who does not know that name, so renowned by 
the great victory of Henri Quatre over the Duke de Joyeuse ? 
That Chateau, which had been inherited by the wife of Conde, 
was the same where the first of the Bourbons had rested the night 
after the battle ; there is the room in which he slept — yonder 
the great saloon where the bodies of the Duke de Joyeuse and 
his brother, drawn from a heap of corpses, were laid upon a table 
covered only by a ragged winding sheet, t But it was not of 
these past conflicts that the officers and ladies of the Princess 

* Lenet, vol. i., p. 461. 

t The Chateau of Montaigne (St. Michel) is ten leagues from Bergerac, 
in the direction of Libourne. One may still see there his study, and the 
portrait painted in fresco of Eleanor, his only daughter. A table which is 
alleged to be the very same at which he wrote his Essays, is also shown to the 
curious who are endued with sufficient faith. (Guide Pittoresque, vol. iv., 
Dept. de la Dordogne, p. 9.) 

X Memoirs of Sully, vol. i., p. 124, ed. 1747. 



1650.J THE PRINCESS MARCHES TO BORDEAUX. 135 

were then thinking, nor even of the conflicts to come. Rejoiced 
at having arrived in so stately a chateau, with the large gardens 
which extended over a smiling country between the rivers L'Isle 
and Dronne, they hoped to remain there a long time, while 
awaiting the events at Bordeaux, and turned from the thoughts 
of war to pursuits of gallantry. Besides Lenet, Miss Gerbier 
could also rank the Duke de Bouillon amongst her admirers ; 
and three rival officers were disputing for the heart of Madame 
de Tourville. " And already,' 5 says Lenet, " the ladies, and some 
" of those whom I have named in connection with them, were 
" beginning to engrave their initials and love-tokens on the bark 
" of the bay-trees, which were the finest and largest I ever saw 
" in my life, and which formed a beautiful avenue on the banks 
" of a very large canal," when the Princess, who was very far 
from partaking in the frivolities of her suite, received intelligence 
from Bordeaux which made her hasten her departure. This 
intelligence, which came from a sure friend, named Mazerolles, 
conveyed the assurance that she would be well received in the 
town, provided she arrived there alone, without the Dukes de 
Bouillon and La Rochefoucauld, and that once entered, she might 
negotiate for their reception ; but that she must use all speed, 
because Lavie, the Advocate- General, had just posted down from 
the Court, with very strict orders to prevent her reception, and 
that he must not be allowed time to concert his measures. 

Clemence despatched her answer instantly to say that she 
would begin her march the next day at the earliest dawn ; but 
that being linked in honour with the two Dukes, she would not 
on any consideration separate herself from them. " I should 
" like better," added she, " that the gates should be shut against 
" me than that this condition should be urged." 

Accordingly on the 30th the Princess again commenced her 
march, accompanied by the Dukes, but leaving her troops en^- 
camped on the river L'Isle. On the 31st she passed the Dor- 
dogne at Lieusac, where she received good news. They sent her 
word that the whole town was burning with impatience to see 
her ; that Lavie had so much influence on the Jurats,* that on 

* " The same magistrate whom they call Echevin at Paris, and Jurat at 
" Bordeaux, at Toulouse bears the name of CapitouL That office confers 
" nobility on the holder." (Menagiana, vol. ii., p. 241, ed. 1715.) 



136 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap, vi, 

the previous day he had obliged them to close the gates three 
hours sooner than usual, and that on that day he had prevented 
their being opened at all, for fear the Princess should enter : 
but that about nine o'clock on that very morning, the populace, 
greatly incensed, had assembled in crowds and had broken down 
the gates by the blows of a hatchet, swearing that they would" 
butcher all those who opposed themselves to the entrance of the 
Princess, and forcing the Jurats and every one present to exclaim 
u Long live the King and the Princes, and down with Mazarin!" 

It was on the next morning only that Clemence had intended en- 
tering Bordeaux ; but wishing to take advantage of the excitement 
of the populace ; she resolved to push forward on that very day. 
Having arrived on the banks of the Garonne, near the village of 
Lormont, she received a third despatch from Mazerolles, and the 
Dukes more than thirty private letters ; all agreeing in saying 
that the inhabitants of Bordeaux would not at first grant an 
entrance to the nobles in revolt, and that they must wait for the 
result of the efforts which the Princess might be able to make in 
their favour. Then, by the express wish of the Dukes them- 
selves, Clemence consented to pursue her journey followed only 
by her son and her faithful female companions : with them she 
put herself into a fishing-boat, and crossed the Garonne. Her 
friends perceiving her from the top of the walls redoubled their 
cries of a Long live the King and Monsieur le Prince !" and her 
entrance became a complete triumph. 

Four hundred vessels which were in the port saluted her with 
three discharges of cannon ; upwards of thirty thousand persons 
rushed to the shore to receive her, and strew her path with 
flowers ; and the Marquises de Sauvebeuf and de Lusignan, who 
served her as equerries, had the greatest difficulty in conveying 
her to the carriage which awaited her. On arriving at the 
hotel, the crowd threw themselves before her, and filled all the 
rooms, so that the Princess was obliged with her son to pass 
upon a terrace in sight of all these desperadoes, who re- 
mained till midnight howling and reiterating blessings for her, 
and imprecations against Cardinal Mazarin and the Duke 
d'Epernon. 

It so happened that on the very same day Colonel d'Alvimar 
arrived at Bordeaux, bearing a letter from the King, which re- 



1650.] THE PRINCESS AND THE PARLIAMENT. 137 

newed the order for preventing the reception of the Princess 
or any of her partisans. As soon as his mission became known, 
the furious populace turned against him ; he was assailed in the 
streets, and would very soon have been cut to pieces, when some 
one, in the hope of saving him, proposed to convey him to the 
hotel of the Princess. As soon as he got there, a discussion 
arose as to the manner in which he should be treated. Lusignan 
and Sauvebeuf, both men of very great weight in the town, 
earnestly pressed the Princess to sacrifice him to the fury of the 
populace ; but the Princess had a great horror of such an action, 
and Lenet proved its inutility. Hoping to be abetted in this 
decision by the Dukes de Bouillon and de la Eochefoucauld, the 
Princess wrote to them at Lormont in order to learn their views ; 
but the note which was brought her from the two Dukes begged 
her on the contrary to give up the unfortunate prisoner. In 
spite of this advice, which clearly shows the ruthless feelings of 
the times, Clemence had the firmness to resist such barbarity, 
and she caused D'Alvimar to be set at liberty, advising him only 
not to undertake another time a similar commission. 

The next day, the 1st of June, the Princess went early to the 
Parliament ; she went on foot, followed by a crowd, and by 
her son, who was carried in the arms of an equerry. As each of 
the magistrates entered she presented to them the young Duke, 
imploring their votes for the petition which she had come 
to offer. The Parliament, though much moved by these touch- 
ing entreaties, hesitated a long time in yielding to them. The 
majority leant rather towards obedience to the King's orders, 
and towards the advice of the Advocate- General Lavie, and the 
First President Pontac. They considered the danger, and — 
what moved still more these honourable men— the crime, of 
allowing themselves to be drawn into a rebellion with the Dukes 
de Bouillon and de la Rochefoucauld, whom the Parliament of 
Paris had just declared guilty of high treason. The debates 
were prolonged, and the result seemed uncertain, when the 
Princess, urged by impatience and grief, took her son by the hand 
and rushed with him into the Great Chamber. She was bathed 
in tears, and wishing to throw herself on her knees, was pre- 
vented with difficulty from doing so by those who ran towards her. 
Then in broken accents she pronounced these words : — " I come, 



138 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

" Gentlemen, to demand justice from the King in your persons 
" against the violence of Cardinal Mazarin, and to place my person 
" and that of my son in your hands. I hope that you will be to 
" him a father : what he has the honour of being to his Majesty, 
" and the character which you bear, should oblige you to do 
" so. He is the only one of his House now at liberty ; he is only 
" seven years of age. Gentlemen, his father is in irons ! You 
" all know, Gentlemen, the great services which he has rendered 
" to the State ; the friendship which he has shown you ; that 
" which my father-in-law had for you : let yourselves be touched 
** by compassion for the most unfortunate House in the world, 
" and the most unjustly persecuted " Here sobs inter- 
rupted her discourse ; the young Duke, putting himself on one 
knee, exclaimed, a Be a father to me, Gentlemen ; Cardinal 
" Mazarin has deprived me of mine !" 

It may be easily conceived that such a sight, and such 
speeches, affected the Councillors even to tears. The President 
Daphis, however, entreated the Princess and her son to retire, 
saying that the Court acknowledged their just grief, and that it 
was going to deliberate upon her petition. " Some time after- 
" wards," says Lenet, " the Company, knowing that the Princess 
" was determined not to leave the Palais de Justice until she 
u had obtained the decree she asked for, sent some of the King's 
(t Counsel to entreat her not to give herself the trouble of waiting. 
" She replied that it was no trouble, and that she had crossed 
(i the country with so much danger to herself, for the sole and 
" express purpose of demanding justice at their hands. The 
" porter had orders to offer her some of the fruit which his 
" house afforded, which he did. The populace, however, who 
" were becoming impatient, made a great noise in the hall, and 
" violently threatened the Parliament if they did not grant the 
" decree which the Priucess claimed."* 

In spite of these outcries the debate between the magistrates 
was still prolonged ; compassion was on one side, but good policy 
on the other. Several amongst them wishing at least to save 
appearances, went to ask the Princess if, in the event of the 
Parliament giving her its protection in Bordeaux, she would live 

* Memoirs, vol. i., p. 418. 



1650.] TUMULT AT BORDEAUX. 139 

there as a faithful subject of his Majesty? Clenience replied 
that she had so declared in her petition ; and at last at six o'clock 
in the evening, the Parliament passed, by a small majority, a 
Decree announcing " That the Lady Princess of Conde, and the 
" Seigneur Duke d'Enghien her son, might reside in that town 
" in safety, under the safeguard of the laws." 

This first step drew on the Parliament much further than they 
had wished. By the next day the two Dukes crossed the 
Garonne and came to reside in the Faubourg des Chartrons. 
The Princess went to visit them ; and the people who followed 
her carriage went on shouting that they would butcher all those 
who should oppose their entrance into Bordeaux. These accla- 
mations did indeed encourage them to enter the town that very 
same night ; and two days afterwards they obtained, partly by 
terror, a decree from the Parliament authorising their residence 
there. 

The intelligence, however, which was received that the 
Chevalier de la Yalette was marching towards Fronsac caused the 
Dukes to depart again in all haste, with the intention of joining 
their troops and giving battle. But La Yalette seeing before 
him this levy of gentlemen and country people, who he thought 
would soon be obliged to disperse for want of resources, judged 
that by avoiding a conflict he should remain at length master of 
the campaign.* Therefore he retired without striking a blow, 
and the Dukes returned to Bordeaux, after having thrown a 
garrison into the Castle of Vayres. 

On their return they still found the town in great commotion. 
It is often very difficult to stir up a populace, but once stirred, it 
is still more difficult to tranquillize it. A report was circulated 
that Lavie was endeavouring to excite a sedition against the 
Princess, and on this rumour a great number of individuals — 
even some Councillors of the Parliament — hastened to her, and 
offered to form her safeguard. Clenience thanked them civilly, 
but replied with much moderation that she wished no other safe- 
guard than that of her Decree — an answer which very much 
pleased the Parliament. 

But some days after, the infuriated populace, stirred anew by 

* La Rochefoucauld, Memoirs, p. 133, ed. 1804. 



140 LIFE OF CONDE [chap. vr. 

every fresh rumour, assembled before Clemence's hotel, and ex- 
claimed that they were going to cut in pieces Lavie and all his 
family. Clemence, appearing upon the balcony, opposed this 
attempt with all her power : unfortunately, there came up the 
Dukes, who had not the same feelings of humanity, and who 
thought that the fury of the people ought not to be restrained- 
Underhand therefore they applauded these acts of violence : nay 
more, when these infuriated people were out of sight of the 
Princess's hotel, the Marquis de Sauvebeuf put himself openly 
at their head. They then rushed to the house of Lavie, which 
they pillaged, and attempted to set on fire, with a thousand 
imprecations against " the traitor to his country"— and the 
" emissary of Mazarin ;" and they would, no doubt, have 
butchered him, as well as his wife, if Sauvebeuf, touched by 
the tears of the latter, had not furnished the means for their 
embarkation on the Garonne. Lavie went to Blaye to the Duke 
de St. Simon ; and several other magistrates, frightened by his 
danger, followed his example. 

Having at last with extreme difficulty succeeded in calming 
the populace, Clemence saw very clearly that she must not risk 
irritating them again, by asking for contributions towards the 
Avar : she therefore undertook, from her own credit, to meet every 
charge. Her jewels, which she pawned to the merchants of Bor- 
deaux, furnished her with a hundred thousand crowns. Lenet 
lent her twenty thousand livres, the produce of the sale of his 
plate at Paris; and the Duke de Bouillon generously poured 
into the common chest a hundred thousand livres, which he 
had levied in his Viscounty of Turenne. The Princess further 
received a hundred thousand livres from the Baron de Vatteville, 
who commanded for the King of Spain in Biscay. By these 
means she was in a situation to levy several new regiments, but 
not to keep them up for a long time. The soldiers were begin- 
ning to murmur, and the gentlemen to wish to return home, and 
Clemence was reduced to giving small sums on account to the 
principal officers unknown to one another, to avoid their preten- 
sions and their jealousies.* 

In this distress the Princess resolved at last to write to the 

* Lenet, vol. i., p. 528. 



1650.] BORDEAUX BESIEGED BY THE ROYALISTS. 141 

King of Spain, to ask him for assistance, and to propose to him 
a treaty ;* and she confided this negotiation to the Marquises de 
Sauvebeuf and de Sillery, wishing to get rid of the former and 
usefully employ the last. They embarked in a frigate for St. 
Sebastian ; but on arriving within sight of Blaye the Duke de 
St. Simon, instigated by Lavie, caused them to be attacked by 
several large boats in so furious a manner that they were obliged 
to leave their ship, land in a little skiff, and at last return to 
Bordeaux. Without allowing himself to be discouraged, Sillery 
started again by land, and deceiving the watchfulness of the posts 
on the frontier, succeeded in crossing the Pyrenees. It may well 
be supposed that a power at war with France saw with pleasure 
the breaking forth of civil discord, and that the Court of Madrid 
received with favour the envoy of the insurrection. But these 
unskilful masters of Peru had less of the reality than the reputa- 
tion of riches. They had recently exhausted their treasury for 
their armies in the Low Countries ; and,' as we shall see by and by, 
could only furnish Bordeaux with feeble and insufficient aid. 

War was, however, already carried to the gates of Bordeaux. 
The Marechal de la Meilleraie, renouncing the siege of Mont- 
rond which he had projected, was advancing upon Poitou with 
a body of troops; another, under the command of the Duke 
d'Epernon, was descending the course of the Garonne. Happily 
for the Princess, these two chiefs did not agree between them- 
selves, and still more happily Epernon's approach re-animated 
the old hatred of the Parliament, which had somewhat lan- 
guished since the outrage against Lavie. They passed a decree 
against their former Governor, and deputed the Councillor Voi- 
sin to carry their complaints to the Parliament of Paris and ask 
for assistance and union. By another decree four deputies were 
named to be present at any council of war over which the Prin- 
cess presided. 

During these decrees and negotiations several little conflicts 
were taking place round Bordeaux, and nearly all terminated to 
the advantage of the Bordelais. The Duke d'Epernon had at 
first taken possession of the Isle of St. George, and had crossed 
on the left side of the Garonne, to surround the town on all 

* Letter to the King of Spain, Bordeaux, June 13, 1659. 



142 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

sides ; but a detachment of Conde's troops not only succeeded 
in retaking the island, but also in taking prisoners there three 
hundred soldiers with the Chevalier de Canolles. It was with 
difficulty that these poor people were saved from the fury of 
the populace, who wished to put them all to death. " The 
" fury was so great," says Lenet, " that a horseman of La 
" Rochefoucauld, who exclaimed in returning, ' Long live the 
" King and the Duke d'Epernon !' was instantly butchered, and 
" dragged along the streets, after his nose and ears had been 
" cut off!"* 

But without pausing to narrate the details of all the smaller 
conflicts, let us pass on to the long-expected result of the ne- 
gotiations in Spain. On the 8th of July the Princess received 
intelligence that three Spanish frigates were entering the Gironde, 
and that they conveyed Don Joseph Ozorio, Envoy of Philip IV., 
and laden, it was said, with considerable treasure. She instantly 
assembled her little council, where the opinions proved to be dis- 
cordant. Some of them wished to receive Don Joseph at night 
and without noise, in order to avoid arousing the national feeling 
of the inhabitants of Bordeaux ; others advised a public and 
pompous entry, in order to pledge the Parliament decisively 
against the Court. This latter advice prevailed : therefore the 
Princess sent her carriage and six horses to await the Envoy at 
the gates of the town, and several of her gentlemen to compliment 
him. He was preceded in the streets by the music of lutes, violins, 
and trumpets ; and the Dukes, after having entertained him at 
sapper, introduced him to the Princess, who had prepared a mag- 
nificent fete for him. Many compliments passed on both sides. 
During this time the populace, always ready to applaud any 
novelty, and never thinking of the result, followed Don Joseph 
about everywhere with acclamations of joy and cries a thousaud 
times repeated, of " Vivent les Princes I " " Vive V Espagne I " 
But the hearts which were truly Frencli grieved at such a spec- 
tacle. Lenet himself acknowledges ingenuously what he calls 
" his weakness." . ..." I much wished for the arrival of this 
" Envoy, from the great necessity in which we stood for want of 
" money. But I was a Frenchman from inclination as much as 

* Memoirs, vol. i., p. 524. 



1650.] SANGUINARY INSURRECTION. 143 

" by birth ; I had, like my fathers before me, been all my life 
" attached to the King's service ; I could not accustom myself 
" to the name of Spaniard ; and I had the greatest trouble in 
" the world in dissembling a kind of inward pain, which made 
" me privately condemn the joy which I saw in others." Even 
amongst the least scrupulous leaders the first burst of joy was 
much lowered when they found that Don Joseph, though charged 
with an infinity of fine promises, brought only forty thousand 
crowns of ready money. 

The patriotism of the Parliament did not belie itself for a mo- 
ment. The four deputies at the council of the Princess had, it 
is true, abetted the public reception of the Spaniard, but the 
other magistrates, justly irritated and all astir, met on the 
following morning and passed an energetic decree against " the 
" arrival of the three Spanish frigates and a certain Joseph 
" Ozorio, a pretended Envoy of his Catholic Majesty, with orders 
" to treat as an outlaw the said Envoy and the people in his 
" train." 

At this decree, so far from favourable to the factious, Clemence 
betook herself to remonstrances and negotiations with the Par- 
liament, which again assured her of its attachment. But the 
Duke de Bouillon, incensed with anger, had recourse to other 
means, marked equally by fraud and violence. Without any 
communication of his design to the Princess, or to Lenet, of 
whose honour he was well aware, he succeeded by his secret 
agents in stirring up the populace against the Parliament. 
Accordingly, two days after the Palais de Justice was sur- 
rounded, not to say besieged, by an immense crowd, which 
howled and threatened the magistrates and demanded loudly a 
decree of union. Upwards of three thousand amongst them were 
armed with swords, several Councillors were struck, and the 
whole Parliament narrowly escaped being massacred. The con- 
fusion was extreme; every one had risen from his seat, and 
every body spoke at once. The President Daphis exclaimed 
with oaths and blasphemies, " Thus, then, it seems we are at the 
" point of being butchered, by the orders of those very persons 
" for whom we have already done so much !" 

Apprised of this terrible scene the Dukes refused to go 
and restore order ; but the Princess did not hesitate in braving 



144 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

this danger and performing this duty. She rushed towards the 
Palais, followed by her women and a single equerry. According 
to the faithful Lenet, " The acclamations of the populace re- 
66 doubled at her presence, as well as their complaints against the 
" Parliament. She harangued them effectually ; and it must be 
" owned that she had so peculiar a talent for public speaking, 
" when she was warmed by some pressing interest, as in this 
" mutiny, that nothing could be better, more to the purpose, 
" nor more conformable to her rank, than what she said. After 
" having spoken to them for some time, without being able to 
" prevail upon them to adopt any resolution, she said at last with 
" a very good grace, ' I see, Gentlemen, very well what you 
" wish: you wish that I should make the populace retire, and 
" draw you from the peril in which you now are ; and a little of 
" your Gascon vanity prevents you from asking me ;' and as 
" a few of them began to smile, ' Well, well, Gentlemen, I 
" understand you ; I will go and do my best. If I succeed, you 
" will declare that your authority would have succeeded without 
"me; and if I fail, you will be sure to say that my credit here is 
" only what is given me by yourselves !' In concluding these 
" words she wished to go out, but in vain, for the populace pre- 
" vented her, exclaiming that the Parliament was principally 
" composed of traitors, and that she must not come out till she 
" had obtained complete satisfaction. She found it hopeless to 
" tell them that she had complete satisfaction already. It was 
" in vain ; she was forced to re-enter."* 

In these circumstances news arrived that one of the Jurats had 
assembled a corps of towns-people well inclined to the Parlia- 
ment, and was marching to its assistance. Clemence took this 
opportunity of obtaining a passage by dint of entreaties, and 
passed through an avenue of two thousand drawn and waving 
swords as far as the portico of the Palais, when she perceived 
the troops of the Jurat, who were rushing on, and who, without 
seeing her, commenced a general charge. Two men, one the 
captain of the regiment of Enghien, were killed close to the 
Princess. But she, without fearing anything on her own account, 
exclaimed, " Let those that love me follow me," and rushed into 

* Lenet, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 26. 



1650.] HIS CONVERSATIONS IN PRISON. 145 

the very midst of the fire, followed by nearly all the gentlemen. 
Making herself known, she succeeded in obliging the partisans, 
ready to butcher each other, to lay down their arms, and to re- 
turn to their homes, and she herself then went back to her hotel, 
accompanied by a thousand blessings. The terror, however, did 
not cease with the tumult : on the following days a deep and 
sullen silence reigned through the town, and the very next 
morning Don Joseph Ozorio re-embarked for Spain, still be- 
wildered with the scene of the previous day, but promising to 
return with prompt and efficient succour. 

On looking back to the events of Bordeaux in 1650, we 
cannot turn our thoughts from the similar events in the same 
town in 1815. Whilst we admire the noble courage of the 
Princess of Conde, can we forget that of the Duchess d'Angou- 
leme — when alone, intrepid, and devoted to her duty, she strove 
against the zeal of the soldiers for their ancient chief, and the 
last smile of Fortune on Napoleon? No ; History will enshrine 
together the names of Claire Clemence de Maille and Marie 
Therese of France ! Both of the House of Bourbon by birth or 
by marriage — both still more illustrious from their noble quali- 
ties — they both furnished an example that neither greatness nor 
virtue can in this world secure us against long and grievous suf- 
fering. Shame to those who can never acknowledge merit in 
any party but their own ! Honour to those generous minds 
which, whatever may be their creed in politics, know how to 
devote themselves, and, if necessary, sacrifice themselves to it ! 

From the depth of his prison the Prince of Conde heard from 
time to time of the progress of his affairs. In spite of De Bar's 
rigorous watching he had found means of carrying on a corre- 
spondence with some friends without ; but these letters were few 
and uncertain. His chief intelligence was derived from Dalence, 
his surgeon, whom he was occasionally allowed to see under 
the pretext of illness. By chance Conde was on a little terrace 
in the Donjon, and was watering some pinks which he amused 
himself by rearing, when Dalence related to him the events of 
Bordeaux. " Would you ever have believed," said the Prince, 
with a smile, " that my wife would have been waging war whilst 
" I watered my garden?"* 

* Lenet, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 392. In the following years they used to 

L 



146 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

The resolute and successful measures taken by the Princess 
equally struck with surprise the Queen and the Cardinal, who 
had expected nothing of the kind. They had brought the young 
King as far as Compiegne to watch the northern frontier, where 
they had every reason to fear a dangerous invasion. But the 
Viscount de Turenne and Madame de Longueville were hardly 
in a situation to profit by the powerful diversion which was fur- 
nished to them by the Princess of Conde in the South of France. 
Spain, exhausted by a long war, and still more by a bad Govern- 
ment, could no longer supply the assistance of men or money 
which she was still constantly promising. When, therefore, 
Turenne, leaving Stenay at the head of several French regiments 
of the Prince's party, had joined the Archduke Leopold with 
his Spaniards, the combined army found itself so weak that they 
were obliged to limit themselves to the taking of Le Catelet. 
They afterwards besieged Guise ; but, always harassed by the 
French army under the Marechal du Plessis, and very soon de- 
prived of* provisions, they saw their ranks thinned by desertion 
and famine, and were obliged, on the 1st of July, to abandon the 
siege, and to retrace their steps towards the Low Countries.* 

Seeing this army for the moment not in a state to continue the 
campaign r Mazarin judged that he should provide sufficiently for 
the safety of the frontier by leaving several regiments there with 
the Marechal du Plessis, whilst he could conduct the others on a 
new expedition. All his thoughts turned towards the insurrec- 
tion in Guyenne; he feared that the other Parliaments might 
make common cause with that of Bordeaux if the revolt was 
much prolonged ; and he thought that the only means of smo- 
thering it was his presence and the authority of the King. 
Therefore giving the Court only a few days of repose at Paris, 
he set it again in motion without delay for Poitou. The troops, 
according to his orders, denied in the same direction. He thought 
it prudent that the Queen should be accompanied in this journey 
by Mademoiselle, as a kind of hostage for the conduct of the 
Duke of Orleans, who was to remain at Paris, and endeavour by 
his name to impose some restraint upon the Parliament. 

show at Vincennes the pinks planted by the hand of the victor of Rocroy, 
and the sight produced some indifferent verses from Mademoiselle de 
Scudery. 

* Memoirs of Montglat, vol. iii., p. 118. 



1650.] MAZARIN IN POITOU. 147 

It was not without reason that the Cardinal mistrusted the deli- 
berations of this Company. It was then divided into three par- 
ties:— first, that for the Princes, who called themselves "La 
" Nouvelle Fronde," knowing that the people were attached to 
this name ; then the Ancient Frondeurs, who were still directed by 
the Coadjutor and the Duke de Beaufort, but who had lost much of 
their popularity since their alliance with the Court ; finally, those 
faithful to the Government, whom the national voice tried to 
brand by giving to them the name of " Mazarins." These three 
parties were about equal, each counting about seventy votes ; there- 
fore the majority of the Parliament was only found when two of 
these parties joined against the third, and the issue of a delibera- 
tion was always problematic and uncertain. Amidst all these 
divisions there prevailed another sentiment, the most powerful of 
all — the desire to maintain the authority of their Company and 
that of the other Parliaments of the kingdom. The very day 
that the Court left the capital, the Sieur Yoisin presented him- 
self before the Great Chamber as the deputy from Bordeaux. 
The Duke of Orleans wished at first to have him refused an 
audience, and afterwards abating this pretension, to let fall his 
request ; but on the contrary the Parliament decided to send a 
deputation to the Queen, " Supplicating very humbly her Majesty 
" to pay attention to the complaints of the Parliament of Bor- 
" deaux, and restore peace to Guyenne." 

On hearing of this decree Mazarin saw very plainly that no 
time was to be lost. A few more months of revolt, and all the 
Parliaments would have made common cause together. The 
shortest means of obtaining the submission of the inhabitants of 
Bordeaux would have been to dismiss the Governor who was so 
odious to them ; but Mazarin was bound by personal interest to 
the Duke d'Epernon, hoping for the marriage of his niece, Ma- 
demoiselle de Mancini, with the Duke de Candale, eldest son of 
the Duke d'Epernon. " You will see," said the courtiers, " that 
" that man will ruin France for the ' beaux yeux ' of Monsieur 
" de Candale." Wishing, on the contrary, to strike people with 
terror, the Cardinal, on his arrival at Poitiers, despatched a let- 
ter, signed by the King, and forbidding, under the penalty of 
death, that the election of the new Jurats should be proceeded 
with, which election, according to custom, was made every year, 

l 2 



148 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

on the 1st of August. The inhabitants of Bordeaux took no 
notice of this prohibition ; the elections took place as usual, and 
the choice fell upon the most devoted partisans of the Princess. 
Another decree of the Parliament of Bordeaux declared that 
Cardinal Mazarin should not be received in the town, and that 
his Majesty should be humbly entreated to enter without troops. 
The Princess also wrote to the King, imploring once more most 
earnestly that liberty should be restored to her husband and to 
her brothers-in-law. " And as an hostage of their fidelity," 
added she, " if so many great services are not sufficient, may it 
" please your Majesty that I should go and pass the remainder 
" of my life, in their stead, in the Donjon of Vincennes." * But 
this generous offer was not accepted. The King was not the 
jailer, nor Vincennes the prison, that Destiny reserved for Cle- 
mence de Maille*. 

It became, therefore, necessary to have recourse to arms, and 
the Cardinal advanced with the Queen and the young King as 
far as the Dordogne. On the road he received the submission 
of the Count Du Dognon, for his town of Brouage, in spite of 
all the obligations under which he lay to the Princess's family. 
Having conveyed the Court to Libourne, Mazarin gave orders 
for an attack upon Vayres, a Chateau which still exists on the 
left bank of the Dordogne, and where the inhabitants of Bor- 
deaux had sent three hundred men for a garrison. 

Their commandant, Bichon, though a simple bourgeois, 
showed himself a soldier at heart : he sustained several assaults 
with unflinching courage, whilst his fellow-citizens attempted to 
send him assistance — several times by troops by land, and once 
by fire-ships upon the Garonne. There were some little conflicts 
in the Island of St. George, without much loss on either side. 
In one of these conflicts, however, the Chevalier de la Valette, 
General of the troops of Epernon, was mortally wounded. But 
at last a traitor in the garrison delivered up the Chateau of 
Vayres, and Richon was conducted to Libourne, where the Car- 
dinal, affecting to treat him as guilty of high treason, and not as 
a prisoner of war, condemned him to be hanged. Mademoiselle 
de Montpensier warmly solicited his pardon ; the unfortunate 

* Letter of the Princess of Conde' to the King, August 2, 1650. 



1650.] EXECUTION OF THE CHEVALIER DE CANOLLES. 149 

man himself implored a commutation of his sentence by being 
beheaded — all was useless. The Cardinal thought to effect a 
coup aVitat by persevering in this cruelty; and the body of 
Richon, after his death, remained suspended several days under 
the market-hall of Libourne. 

The effect of this news at Bordeaux by no means corresponded 
with Mazarin's hopes. It furnished new weapons to the partisans 
of the war ; it excited to fury or reduced to silence those who had 
wished for peace. At the Parliament all the gentleness to which 
some of the Councillors had leant, gave place to the most violent 
anger. " After such an example," said they, " we have now 
" nothing else to do but to cast aside our lawyer's gowns, gird on 
u our swords, and prepare ourselves for an honourable death by a 
" legitimate defence against a stranger, the enemy of the State." 
The furious populace rushed in crowds before the Princess's hotel, 
and burst into cries of vengeance : they thought of nothing less 
than butchering the three hundred prisoners taken in the Island 
of St. George, and it was with difficulty that the Princess suc- 
ceeded in saving them ; but she could not prevent the Council of 
War from deciding that reprisal should be made against the 
commandant of the prisoners, the Chevalier de Canolles. He had, 
however, made himself generally popular at Bordeaux by his 
gay and sociable disposition ; and for several weeks he had been 
liberated on parole, the town only being assigned him as his 
prison. The guards who were sent to arrest him found him at 
table with his friends. He was not alarmed on hearing his warrant 
read to him, and could not believe that they were really going 
to take his life without his ever having committed any crime. 
The Princess, deeply touched at his fate, once more assembled 
the Council of War, summoning also the thirty-six Captains of 
the Militia of Bordeaux, and even the Lieutenants and Ensigns. 
All unanimously demanded the death of poor Canolles, and even 
with new tortures. They refused to hear the prisoner, or to 
observe any form of justice. Then the Princess limited her 
request to at least deferring the execution to the next day, hoping 
probably that she might contrive the escape of the victim during 
the night. " But," says Lenet, " the fury of the people was so 
" great that she could not succeed. One of the principal persons 
" amongst them said one of the silliest things imaginable in 



150 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

" support of the argument against any delay. i The Cardinal/ 
" said he, ' has complete power over the King's mind : he will 
" induce his Majesty to send and ask the prisoner's life of us ; 
" we should not be able to grant it, and that would lead his Ma- 
" j es ty *° refuse other favours hereafter when our fellow- citizens 
" ask him. We must consider that we are very apt to fight duels, 
" and that we are hourly exposing ourselves to require the King's 
" pardon.' This fine reasoning was so applauded by all the people 
" that nothing more could be done with them. Although it was 
a already late, the execution took place the same night in the 
tl port of Bordeaux. The fury of the people was extreme on 
" this occasion. This Chevalier de Canolles was a Huguenot; 
" and it was not possible to persuade them to allow the poor 
" man a priest to try and convert him in dying. They said that, 
" being a Mazarin, he must of course be damned ; and if the 
" bourgeoisie had not been armed, he would have been torn to 
" pieces by the rabble which followed him to the scaffold." * 

Notwithstanding all the horror which such an execution in- 
spires, it must be acknowledged that it was followed by a good 
result : since that time the prisoners on either side were treated 
according to the rules of war. Must we then acknowledge that 
a compassionate heart, like that of the Princess of Conde, may 
sometimes become a dangerous counsellor ? 

This fear of reprisals saved the Chateaux as well as the com- 
batants. Mazarin had already taken measures for the destruction 
of Yayres, but he immediately suspended them as soon as the 
Duke de Bouillon threatened to do the same with a fine country- 
house of the Archbishop of Bordeaux. According to the Car- 
dinal's orders they had also begun the demolition of the magni- 
ficent Chateau of Verteuil in Poitou, the ancient and illustrious 
inheritance of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. It was there that 
his ancestor had the honour of receiving Charles V. in his pas- 
sage through France in 1539, when the Emperor said on taking 
leave, " that he had never entered a house which showed more 
" of virtue, courtesy, and grandeur."! When the Duke heard 
at Bordeaux that they were already in the act of destroying this 
venerable abode of his ancestors, he displayed no grief. On the 

* Lenet, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 95. 
f St. Aulaire, Hist, de la Fronde, vol. ii., p. 171. 



1650.] NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 151 

contrary, he expressed joy at being able to offer this sacrifice 
the more to Madame de Longueville. It appears, however, 
that the dread of reprisals soon stopped the havoc at Verteuil ; 
for I find that in 1698 the Chateau was entire, and in good pre- 
servation.* % 

The Royal army, which amounted to eight thousand foot sol- 
diers and three thousand cavalry, persevered in attempting to 
retake the Island of St. George. It was defended, during three 
or four days, with a good deal of vigour, because at every tide a 
fresh regiment was sent from Bordeaux to relieve guard ; but at 
length the boats which had brought some troops, and which were 
to take back those which had been relieved, having been sunk by 
a battery which the Marechal de la Meilleraie had raised on the 
bank of the river, fear so completely took possession of the 
soldiers, and even of the officers, that they gave themselves all 
up as prisoners of war. "J* Thus the inhabitants of Bordeaux not 
only lost this island, which was important to them, but also 
twelve hundred men of their best infantry, and they saw them- 
selves on the eve of being besieged by the King. Their courage, 
nevertheless, animated by the outrage against Richon, did not 
flag ; and they occupied themselves with ardour in finding the 
means for their defence. It was thought, however, that it would 
be hardly prudent to show their troops, thus diminished, and very 
inferior to those of the King, in a general review which had 
been announced ; and to have a motive for its postponement, the 
Princess was advised to keep her bed for two or three days, under 
the plea of an illness which she had not. 

In the mean time the Deputies whom the Parliament of Paris 
had sent to treat for peace arrived at Libourne. They were 
accompanied by the Marquis du Coudray, whom the Duke of 
Orleans had adjoined to them for the same object. Mazarin, 
though much irritated at having his own department thus infringed 
upon, did not dare to oppose openly the first Court of Justice in 
the kingdom, and the first Prince of the Blood ; and consented 
to grant a truce for ten days. On the other hand, the Princess 
and the Dukes saw no means of safety for themselves but in con- 
tinuing the war. With so much repugnance in the leaders of 

* Boulainvilliers, Etatde la France, vol. ii., p. 145, ed. 1727. 
t La Rochefoucauld, Memoirs, p. 138. 



152 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

both parties, it was not very difficult to perplex and entangle the 
negotiation. First several days were lost by the blunder of the 
Marquis du Coudray, who addressed his letter to the Parliament 
" A Messieurs," instead of " Messeigneurs" according to the 
form they required, so that his letter was not even unsealed. 
Even after he had repaired his mistake, and had come into the 
town to have an audience of the magistrates, he took fright at 
the furious crowd which followed him in the streets, exclaiming 
that if the Princess had not forbidden them, they would have 
thrown him into the river. On his return he assured the Car- 
dinal and the Deputies from Paris that the devil was unloosed 
at Bordeaux, and that there was no hope of an accommodation 
with such people. Thus the war recommenced. 

The Bordelais, however, calculated less upon their resources, 
which they knew to be insufficient, than upon those which they 
were led to hope for from without. They always thought that 
the Marechal de la Force would not be long in joining them, and 
they " thought more of Monsieur de la Force," says Lenet, 
" than of all the other nobles in France." But the Marechal 
continued quiet in his Chateau of Castelnau on the Dordogne, 
and only sent to Bordeaux his grandson, the Marquis de Cugnac, 
who gave the chiefs to understand that a good sum of ready money 
could alone determine him to take the field. Such a sum they 
were less able than ever to furnish ; the resources of the Princess 
were nearly exhausted, and they lived on wretchedly from day to 
day on the small sums which Lenet still found means of borrow- 
ing from bankers. Spain, always poor in the midst of her trea- 
sures, sent nothing but promises, of which she was not a little 
lavish. At least twenty despatches arrived one after the other 
from the Baron de Vatteville, announcing that some ships laden 
with pistoles were on the point of sailing. " Again on the 4th of 
" August," says Lenet, " he wrote to me promising a speedy 
" assistance of men, money, and ships, which are still to 
" come."* 

The Princess on her side never ceased sending word into 
Spain of the necessity in which she stood ; sometimes her mes- 
sages were conveyed in boats on the Gironde, and sometimes 

* Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 115. 



1650.] CHAMPAGNE INVADED BY TURENNE. 153 



across the Pyrenees by Baron Dorte's people. This latter gen- 
tleman appears to have been the grandson of the brave Governor 
of Bayonne, at the famous St. Bartholomew's day. Charles IX. 
having written at that time to all the Governors an order for the 
massacre of the Huguenots, the Viscount Dorte replied : " Sire, 
" I have found amongst the inhabitants and the men-at-arms at 
? this place only good citizens and brave soldiers, but not one exe- 
" cutioner ; therefore both they and myself entreat your Majesty 
" to employ our arms and our lives in things which are feasible." 
This great and generous courage, says Montesquieu, looked upon 
a base action as a thing impossible !* 

The people of Bordeaux consented once more to allow them- 
selves to be duped by the promises from Spain, but the chiefs 
now only reckoned upon those of Turenne. He had just com- 
municated to them his projects by Gourville, who, formerly a 
lackey of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, became his valet-de- 
chambre, and later his confidential secretary, and who at this 
period often went to Stenay with messages from his master to the 
Duchess de Longueville. He was a man of a quick and penetrat- 
ing mind, and extraordinary skill in affairs. Some years later the 
Prince of Conti, commanding an army, wrote of him in these 
terms to La Eochefoucauld : " I entreat you to send him 
" quickly to me in Catalonia, for I have very little infantry, 
" and without infantry and without Gourville one can hardly 
" make much progress in this country. If I am in want of 
" cavalry in the coming campaign, I shall still ask you to send 
" him to me ; and when I am in want of cannon, I shall again 
" ask for Gourville." j The promises of which Gourville was 
the bearer gave assurance that as soon as the Court had arrived 
in Guyenne, and the frontier had been stripped of troops, Tu- 
renne would put himself in motion, and would attempt a bold 
stroke for the deliverance of the Princes. Accordingly, as soon 
as he saw a favourable opportunity, gaining by a skilful manoeuvre 
several days' march from the Marechal du Plessis, and beating 
the Marechal d'Hocquincourt, who had thrown himself with some 
troops across his road, he advanced at the head of a large corps 
of cavalry by the plains of Valois towards the Chateau of 

* Esprit des Lois, livre iv., ch. ii. 
f Memoirs of Gourville, vol. i., p. 153, ed. 1783. 

l3 



154 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

Vincennes. On the other side the Archduke Leopold led his 
Spaniards to Fismes sur Vesle ; and to exasperate the people's 
minds against Mazarin, proclaimed by manifestos that the war 
continued only because the Cardinal persisted in refusing all offers 
of accommodation. 

At the news of Turenne's approach, a great agitation mani- 
fested itself amongst the people of Paris, and discord broke out 
amongst their chiefs. It was necessary to provide without delay 
for the safe custody of the Princes by transferring them to another 
prison, and the Coadjutor insisted upon the Bastille, which 
would have put them entirely at his disposal, whilst the citadel 
of Havre was proposed by Le Tellier, who knew Mazarin's secret 
intentions. At last the Duke of Orleans caused the choice to fall 
upon Marcoussy, a fortified Chateau six leagues from Paris, nearly 
in the direction of Rambouillet. This Chateau was built in the 
middle of a large and deep piece of water, and the enemy could not 
approach it without having crossed the Seine and the Marne ; but 
what still more pleased Gaston, was that he himself would have 
much influence over the fate of the prisoners whilst they re- 
mained at Marcoussy, which belonged, it is true, to the Count 
d'Entragues, but which was contiguous to Limours, the country- 
house of the Duke of Orleans. Thus, therefore, almost at the 
same moment as Turenne's advanced guard, headed by the Count 
de Boutteville, came in sight of Vincennes, the Princes were 
transferred from thence, under the care of Bar, who had pro- 
mised the Queen to stab Conde with his own hand rather than 
let him have an opportunity of recovering his liberty. 

Having thus missed his aim, and not daring any longer to 
reckon upon a revolt at Paris, Turenne returned slowly and with 
regret towards the Archduke, who began ravaging the plains and 
reducing some little towns. The result to Conde of this brilliant 
enterprise was only to make him lose other hopes of escape, which 
the zeal of his friends and his own courage had been preparing. 
They had found means of conveying letters to him, which were 
placed in the false bottoms of bottles of wine, made on purpose ; 
and they made use in the same way of crown-pieces, which were 
sent for his use in playing cards, and which were made hollow.* 

* Memoirs of Claude Joli, Chanoine de Paris. 



1650.] THE DONJON OF VINCENNES. 155 

In the same manner a crutch which the Prince of Conti had re- 
quested during an illness contained a sword for the victor of Ro- 
croy.* The opportunity of using it for his deliverance seemed 
near at hand. Of the seven soldiers who slept every night in his 
room, three had been gained over by Gourville in his last journey ; 
and Monsieur le Prince was, in concert with them, to draw his 
sword from its hiding place, disarm the other four guards, and 
descend into the moat of the castle, whilst some men on horseback 
were to await him on the other side. For the execution of this 
design a Sunday had been chosen, when M. de Bar would be at 
vespers ; and everything was ready for its completion, when one 
of the soldiers who had been gained over was seized with a 
panic, which he called remorse, and going to the confessional, 
he slipped into the hand of the priest a note thus expressed : 
" Sunday next, at three o'clock, the Princes are to be set at 
" liberty ; there is an understanding in Vincennes for that pur- 
" pose." This note was carried to the Coadjutor, who by Satur- 
day had the guards changed at Vincennes, and sent over M. de 
Beaufort with some horsemen, for the purpose of watching the 
surrounding country.*)" Thus it became necessary to abandon 
this project ; but without losing courage, the Princes' friends 
were framing a new one, when the transfer to Marcoussy once 
more disconcerted their plans. 

During the whole time of his detention at Vincennes Monsieur 
le Prince evinced much courage and firmness. He was resolved, 
so long as he remained in prison, not to make the smallest con- 
cession to his enemies. A proposal had been made to him 
through Dalence, his surgeon, for a marriage between the Prince 
of Conti and one of the Cardinal's nieces. Conde replied 
haughtily that he would rather remain a prisoner all his life than 
purchase his liberty at the price of such an alliance. J 

Providence, guide and support of those even who dare to ab- 
jure thee, by what divine goodness dost thou throw a veil over 
that future which we seek so imprudently to penetrate ! How 
many happy illusions dost thou preserve to us — how many suffer- 
ings dost thou spare ! If Conde could support as a hero his own 

* Memoirs of Abbe Arnauld, p. 128, ed. 1824. 

t Gourville, Memoirs, vol. i., pp. 26 — 35. 

X Lenet, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 171. 



156 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vi. 

misfortunes, would not he have sunk under those of his blood ? 
Could he have foreseen that this same Donjon of Vincennes 
would become not only the prison but the tomb of his race — if 
his heart had opened to the anguish of a father, of whom the 
terrible malediction of the Roman should be accomplished — 

" Ux,TIMUS STJORUM MORIATUR :" — 

if his eye had perceived those two words of eloquent simplicity 
— -hic cecidit — which to this day mark, in the depth of the 
moat at Vincennes, the spot where perished of a deplorable 
death the last Enghien — if at this sight myself, a stranger to 
the Bourbons, and in whose veins French blood even does not 
flow, feel my heart beat and my pulses thrill — who can imagine, 
who will dare to describe, what Conde himself would have 
felt? 



1650.] SIEGE OF BORDEAUX CONTINUED. 157 



CHAPTER VII. 

Attack of le Palais Gallien — Action at la Porte Dijeaux — Growing desire 
for Peace — Negotiation concluded — Interview at Bourg between the 
Princess and the Queen Begent — The Court enters Bordeaux — The 
Princess retires to her Father's house of Milly — Her reception at Valencay, 
and at Montrond— Conde conveyed from Marcoussy to the citadel of 
Havre — Death of his Mother — Steps taken in the Parliament of Paris 
towards his liberation — Change of Affairs — The Queen Regent detained 
as a captive — Mazarin a fugitive at the head of three hundred horse — His 
interview with Conde at Havre — Conde and his brothers set free. 

After the capture of Vayres and of the Island of St. George, 
the Royal army, having thus occupied the principal posts around 
Bordeaux, took measures to carry on with vigour the siege of 
the town. In order to watch the operations more closely, the 
Cardinal conveyed the Court to Bourg, a large village at the 
mouth of the Dordogne. On their side the Bordelais, without 
losing courage, prepared themselves for an obstinate resistance. 

Having obtained information from the bakers and corn-deal- 
ers, they found that they had sufficient provisions in the town 
to last them a year. Reassured on this point, they resolved to 
increase their thirty-six companies of militia to two hundred 
men each, superseding at the same time all those who from their 
age or infirmities were incapable of service ; and the gentlemen 
of the Princess were to share the guard together with the hour- 
geois. They caused also, by means of their sluices, the water from 
the river to be retained at a certain height, so as to enable them, 
if necessary, to flood the marshes, which defended the greater 
part of the town. 

The two Faubourgs which appeared the most exposed were 
that of the Bastide, on the other side of the Garonne, and that of 
St. Surin, near the gate of Dijeaux. Under the direction of the 
Dukes de Bouillon and de la Rochefoucauld considerable works 
were raised at these two points. A great many houses were em- 

M 



158 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vn. 

battled ; several barricades were made at the entrance of all the 
streets; and a little mound in front of the gate of Dijeaux, 
gradually formed by the accumulation of filth and rubbish which 
had been thrown out of the town, served for the foundation of 
a half-moon. By a decree of the Parliament each house was to 
furnish one man to work at the fortifications, and the populace, 
always eager for novelties, assembled there, as though it had been 
a merry-making or a fete. Pains were taken to keep them in this 
happy humour. The principal ladies of the city were seen car- 
rying earth in little baskets ornamented with ribbons ; the Prin- 
cess herself insisted upon taking part in the toil, to animate the 
others ; and the young Duke d'Enghien, mounted on a little 
white horse, went from post to post to visit the works, and caused 
every one to exclaim when he passed " Long live the King and 
" the Princes, and down with Mazarin !" At night the Dukes 
regaled the ladies with fruits and sweetmeats, and the workmen 
with wine. Then Clemence used to take them excursions in a 
graceful galley, which had been equipped for her use, and which 
was called after her, " The Princess ;" she was greeted by the 
firing of all the guns of the vessels in the port, and by acclama- 
tions of joy from the people on the shore. On the sails of her 
galley, as well as on the standards of her soldiers or the militia, 
was embroidered the device which she had adopted from the 
commencement of the war : this was a grenade bursting and 
spreading its fire on all sides, with this word, Coacta, meaning 
that as the grenade never causes any noise of itself, so the 
Princess only did so because she was compelled.* 

Meanwhile, the country people of the neighbourhood — from 
the marshes, which are still called by the Latin name of Palus — 
made common cause with the townspeople, and every morning 
brought them many prisoners whom they had taken in their 
dykes and on their wastes. These were soldiers of the Koyal 
army, who had disbanded for pillage. Beside such prisoners, the 
countrypeople, placing themselves in ambuscade, killed a great 
many. " I cannot refrain," says Lenet, " here relating an order 
" which was given by the Captain de Candeyrand ; for thus was 
" called the person who commanded all the villagers, because he 
" came from a place of that name. This order prohibited them 
* Compare two passages in Lenet, vol. ii., pp. 229 and 451. 



1650.] LE PALAIS GALLIEN. 159 



" from firing at any but Mazarin's cavalry — seeing," said he, 
" that a foot soldier is not worth the charge of a gun ! "* 

The Eoyalists having at last completed all their preparations, 
and assembled all their forces, the Marechal de la Meilleraie 
proposed to commence the campaign by attacking the Bastide ; 
but Cardinal Mazarin, who had served in his youth as a captain 
of cavalry, and who, like his master, Richelieu, piqued himself 
upon his military genius, preferred the Faubourg St. Surin for 
the beginning of the operations against Bordeaux. He therefore 
made the troops cross over to the left bank of the Garonne, 
and desired the Marechal to march to the attack on the morning 
of the 5th of September. Himself, from the summit of a steeple, 
watched, and fancied that he directed, the conflict. But he little 
expected so valiant a resistance. At his very first movement 
the alarum-bells sounded all over the town ; the Dukes mounted 
their horses before the morning had dawned ; the militia-men 
rushed from their different quarters ; and they proved on this 
occasion, says Lenet, that all Gascons are born brave. 

Some of them, leaving the town, placed themselves as marks- 
men amongst the vines, or along the hedges ; others defended 
the enclosures ; Bouillon himself was in the cemetery of the 
Church of St. Surin, and La Rochefoucauld at the barricade 
where the principal attack was made.f The barricades, the 
adjoining houses, the alleys of the Archbishop's residence, the 
Roman ruins, which are called the " Palais Gallien"% were all 
assailed at the same time, but without success. Five or six 
attacks, one after the other, of the King's best troops — veteran sol- 
diers formed by Turenneand by Conde himself — were vigorously 
repulsed by a handful of gentlemen, and by the bourgeois — nu- 
merous, it is true, but without any experience in arms. The fire 
was very sharp, and continued the whole day without slack- 
ening. At length, towards night, the Faubourg was carried, 
and the Bordelais retreated into the town. They had about a 

* Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 257. 

f La Kochefoucauld, Memoirs, p. 143. 

J These are the remains of an ancient amphitheatre supposed to have 
been built by the Emperor Gallienus. Perhaps, however, the name is de- 
rived from a ridiculous fable of the dark ages on a Princess Galiene, daughter 
of a Moorish king and wife of Charlemagne. See the Me'moires de 1' Academie 
des Inscriptions, vol. xii., pp, 239 — 252. 

M 2 



160 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vii. 

hundred and twenty men killed or wounded ; amongst others, the 
Chevaliers de Mailly and de Guitaut, who died of their wounds, 
and several prisoners of note, like the Chevalier de Thodias. But 
the loss of the besiegers was much more considerable — a hundred 
officers and nine hundred soldiers killed or wounded ; and the 
army, which was already not superior in number to that which 
it was besieging, was much and dangerously weakened and dis- 
couraged. The Marechal asked for a truce to bury his dead, 
but the Bordelais refused it. 

The next day, concentrating all his forces, the Marechal 
opened the trenches in front of the half-moon at the gate of 
Dijeaux. He hoped to make himself master of it without re- 
sistance : it was a work of little strength, and constructed in 
haste, only six feet high, and which had not even any ditch 
before it. But the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who commanded 
there, gave an example of the most brilliant courage. In the first 
attack the besiegers lost two hundred men ; and the following 
days they were not more fortunate. Once, however, they pene- 
trated into the interior ; but La Rochefoucauld drove them out 
again, sword in hand : and to encourage the others, he would no 
longer quit his post, either night or day. The besieged also 
made three great sorties, to sweep the trenches and burn the 
camp of the Royal troops ; and the Princess, after having ani- 
mated by her presence all those who were to make the attack, 
mounted — like the lady of the castle in the days of chivalry — to 
the top of a neighbouring tower, to contemplate their exploits.* 
At last, after thirteen days of open trenches, the siege was not 
more advanced than the first day.f " It is singular," says an 
historian, " that a mere dung-heap like that of the Porte Di- 
" jeaux, should have served as a fortification against eleven 
" thousand men of regular troops ! "J 

The Mare'chal de la Meilleraie, now renouncing any further at- 
tacks, withdrew his troops to some distance, and took measures for 
bombarding the town. But several circumstances equally dis- 
posed at that time both parties — the Cardinal and the inhabit- 
ants of Bordeaux — to peace. The Minister wished to reduce, 

* Lenet, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 296. 

f La Rochefoucauld, Memoirs, p. 144. 

X Ramsay, Hist, de Turenne, vol. ii., p. 260. 



1650.] NEGOTIATIONS RENEWED. 161 

and not ruin this flourishing town. Its bombardment could 
have been a triumph only to the Court of Madrid. He saw 
with pain the progress made by the Archduke upon the northern 
frontier, and the necessity of leading back his troops against their 
former enemy. What caused him still greater disquietude was 
to remember that the Princes were prisoners at Marcoussy, in the 
hands of the Duke of Orleans ; and he longed to return, in order 
to persuade the weak-minded Gaston to transfer them to the ci- 
tadel of Havre. His presence was not less needful to restrain the 
encroachments of the Parliament of Paris, and the other intrigues 
which resulted from the imprisonment of the Princes. " This 
" affair," exclaimed he, " is a thistle which pricks on every side !" 
Thus, in order to have done with the insurgents of Bordeaux, he 
expressed himself ready to agree to any reasonable conditions, 
and especially that which they had most at heart — the revocation 
of the Duke d'Epernon as Governor of Guyenne. 

On the other hand, the Bordelais saw themselves frustrated 
in the hopes they had formed from Turenne's expedition. They 
were tired of calculating upon any help from Spain, and began 
to regard her promises as snares laid by the Duke de Bouillon. 
They thought that he disguised his own people as couriers to 
come and detail news invented by himself. " That was not 
" true, however," says Lenet ; " and if we did lie, it was only 
" in publishing the lies of the Baron de Vatteville."* 

Discord, the usual result of want of resources in a party, 
increased daily between the bourgeois and the gentlemen, and 
amongst the gentlemen themselves. One morning two officers 
declared that they were going to leave their posts if each of them 
was not forthwith named a Marechal de Camp, which would 
have made all the others equally discontented ; and it was neces- 
sary to disturb the Princess from her devotions, which she was 
performing in the church of St. Andre, in order to compose these 
differences.f But the reason which, above all, weighed with 
the Bordelais in their endeavours for ending the siege, was the 
desire to leave the town and go to their vintage. Without suc- 
cours or without a peace before the 1st of October, the grapes 
would be spoiled, and the landlords be ruined. 

* Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 231. f lb., p. 319. 



162 LIFE OF CONDE. [cha£. vii. 

Thus determined upon the same end, though with different 
motives, Cardinal Mazarin and the Parliament of Bordeaux 
accepted the mediation of the Deputies from the Parliament of 
Paris and of the Marquis du Coudray ; and a truce of ten days 
was concluded immediately, in order to make another attempt at 
negotiation. During this time almost everybody, out of curi- 
osity, passed from one camp to the other, and the bourgeois went 
in such crowds to visit the trenches and batteries of the besiegers 
that it became necessary to forbid them by a decree from passing 
the barriers on pain of death. 

On their side, the Princess of Conde and the Dukes were far 
from partaking this ardour for a peace, unless indeed it bore as 
a condition the liberation of the Princes; but they depended 
entirely upon the goodwill of the townspeople, and they had no 
means of forcing them against their inclination to continue the 
war. The Princess, in spite of her regret, showed, as she always 
did, much gentleness and dignity. An assembly of the " Hun- 
" dred and Thirty " having been convoked at the Hotel de Ville, 
to deliberate upon the articles, Clemence went thither. She was 
accompanied by her son and the Dukes, but had forbidden all the 
other officers and gentlemen to follow her, fearing that in so deli- 
cate a conjuncture, where every word ought to be well weighed, 
some one might let drop an indiscreet expression. "I do not 
" come, Gentlemen," said she, " to create any obstacle to the 
" peace which the members of the Parliament have determined 
" to accept. I leave you full liberty to conclude it at any time 

" or in any manner which you may judge proper Besides, 

" it will be a great consolation to me if my presence and that 
u of my friends amongst you, and the blood which they have shed, 
" shall have obtained for you the revocation of your Governor, 
" and the other conditions which you had solicited without success 

" for a whole year before my arrival As for me, I will 

" only say that it would be generous in you, if you can no longer 
" maintain me in your town, to find me some retreat elsewhere, 
" where I might be protected from the violence of Cardinal 
" Mazarin, whom I shall never trust ; for I will not expose my 
" son to the same treatment which Monsieur his father suffers. 

" And I give you my word, as well as that of my son, 

" though he is still so young, that we will never forget our 



1G50.] PEACE CONCLUDED. 163 

" present obligations towards you, nor those which we still hope 
" to owe." 

The Dukes spoke after the Princess, and Monsieur de Bouillon 
said, for both of them, that although the Queen kept from him 
all his estates, and his wife and daughter as prisoners — although 
Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld had been deprived of his govern- 
ment of Poitou, and his houses had been destroyed — they still 
had both of them no other object in the negotiations which they 
were about to commence than the liberation of the Princes, and 
that they asked nothing for themselves but a passport for their 
retirement out of France.* The Councillors, who knew how 
much they had bound themselves by their own former decrees, 
and who expected complaints and reproaches for having failed in 
their promises, were equally surprised and touched by this mode- 
ration. They forthwith charged their Deputies not to accept any 
peace unless they obtained complete sureties for the Princess and 
all her partisans ; and in leading her back to her carriage, several 
of the most powerful amongst them whispered her, " Do not 
" distress yourself, Madam ; we will begin again after the 
" vintage, and we shall then have better means for assisting you 
" than we have yet had." 

The Bordelais had already desired their Deputies to make an 
effort to obtain the deliverance of the Princes, but at the very 
first word the request had been strenuously rejected. In order 
that nothing should be neglected on their part, the Princess had 
sent Lenet, and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld Gourville, to the 
Court for the same object ; but these two skilful men could obtain 
nothing but empty words. The Cardinal protested that the 
dearest wish of his heart was to grant the Princes their liberty, 
were it in his power : but they were at Marcoussy ; the first object 
must be to transfer them to Havre ; and then he swore that he 
would not lose a moment in treating with them, and offering them 
his friendship. Mazarin's promises were already reduced to their 
just value in public estimation : he could still tell falsehoods, but 
he could no longer deceive. 

Considering the eagerness which both the Cardinal and the 
Bordelais had for peace, the negotiations were not long: the 

* We must here compare, and as it seems to me combine, two passages 
of Lenet, Memoirs, vol. ii., pp. 297—300, and 383—385. 



164 LTFE OF CONDE. [chap. vii. 

treaty was concluded before the end of September. In order to 
be tender of the Royal authority, it was agreed to pass over in si- 
lence the principal condition — the recall of the Duke d'Epernon ; 
but it took place immediately after, and Mazarin promised that 
the choice of the new Governor should be agreeable to the pro- 
vince. The articles of the treaty stipulated that the King and 
the Queen should be received in Bordeaux with their usual suite 
— that the town should preserve all its privileges — and that the 
Chateau Trompette should remain in its ruined state. A full 
and complete amnesty was granted to all those who had taken up 
arms ; and the great lords, particularly the Dukes de Bouillon 
and de la Rochefoucauld, were to be restored to the employments 
and estates which they possessed on the day the Princess left 
Montrond. The Princess herself, and the Duke d'Enghien, might 
retire unmolested, with their suite, officers, and servants, to any 
of her houses in Anjou which she chose, where she should enjoy 
all her revenues — unless indeed she preferred the Chateau 
de Montrond, where she was to have the right of maintaining a 
garrison of two hundred foot soldiers, and fifty mounted guards. 
These troops were to be chosen by herself, and commanded by 
her officers, but defrayed at the expense of his Majesty, on the 
general receipt of Berry. 

Thus assured of a good fortress for her residence, and a good 
garrison for her defence, Clemence made her preparations for her 
departure ; and commenced her visits of thanks to each Coun- 
cillor who had upheld her interests in the Parliament. They 
saw her depart with real regret. " Her gentleness," says an his- 
torian, " her constant humanity, her heroic intrepidity in all 
" dangers, her tenderness for her son, and her devotion for her 
" husband, had excited a tender admiration in all classes." * 
Even in the last moments of her stay, when she had her equipage 
to prepare, when all her resources seemed to be exhausted, and 
her want of money was urgent, she no sooner had received two or 
three thousand crowns, lent by some gentlemen, than she caused 
them to be distributed instantly to such poor officers as were 
wounded or ill.f But the town would not allow itself to be out- 

* St. Aulaire, La Fronde, vol. ii., p. 266 
f Lenet, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 419. 



1650.] THE PRINCESS AND THE BOKDELAIS. 165 

done in generosity. In a solemn assembly, held at the Hotel de 
Ville, it was resolved to restore to the Princess the jewels which 
she had given them in pledge, and to charge themselves with all 
the other debts which she had contracted at Bordeaux for the 
common cause. The Jurats and the principal magistrates came 
therefore to restore the jewels to the Princess. " She made great 
" difficulties in accepting them," says Lenet : " she insisted upon 
" giving them at least her bond, which they as steadily refused. 
" At last, after a long debate, the Princess accepted the gift 
" which was offered to her. She repaid them with many tears 
a of gratitude, which flowed so abundantly during the whole 
" time of this interview that she could scarcely utter a word ; 
" but she embraced the most considerable persons among them, 
" and the young Duke all of them, as many as there were, one 
" after the other. They all left her hotel in tears." 

" Thus," adds the same faithful servant, " Madame la Princesse 
" had gained the affections of one of the most important towns 
" in the kingdom ; she had carried on the war without loading 
" her House with debt ; she had given the impulse, by her firm- 
" ness and that of her friends, to all those who were seen soon 
" afterwards to declare themselves, in different parts of the 
" kingdom, in favour of Monsieur her husband ; she caused her 
" friends and her followers to be restored to their estates and em- 
" ployments ; she avoided falling, with her son, into the hands 
" of the enemies of her House ; and, above all, she gained the 
" friendship of Monsieur her husband, who had not thought her 
er capable of contributing so much as she did to the recovery of 
" his freedom. All France, and, it may be said, all Europe, 
" saw with astonishment a young Princess, without experience, 
" do all that the most consummate prudence and the most de- 
" termined daring could have undertaken. But what cannot be 
" achieved by goodwill and honour ? " 

Even in concluding the peace, the Dukes de Bouillon and de 
la Rochefoucauld wished to prepare themselves for another war 
in the spring. They judged it expedient to send the Marquis 
de Lusignan to Madrid, with their ciphers and private instruc- 
tions, so that they might be in a position to solicit fresh assist- 
ance from Spain when they should require it. This project 
required the most profound secrecy, and at the very moment of 



166 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vii. 

a treaty with the Court was somewhat repugnant to good faith — 
they therefore carefully concealed it from the Princess. Only 
the night before her departure from Bordeaux they had her 
awakened from her sleep, in order to obtain, on the sudden, 
and without leaving her leisure for deliberation, her signature to 
the credentials for Lusignan ; and Lusignan, provided with these 
credentials, was already on his way before daybreak. 

On the 3rd of October the Princess left Bordeaux in a galley, 
accompanied by her son and her ladies, the Dukes de Bouillon 
and de la Rochefoucauld, the Counts de Coligny, de Guitaut, de 
Lorge, and many other gentlemen. Upwards of twenty thou- 
sand persons followed her to the port, heaping their blessings 
upon her, as well as upon the young Duke d'Enghien. She in- 
tended to disembark at Lormont, and go to her house at 
Coutras, where she had permission to remain for three days ; 
but she met on the river the Marechal de la Meilleraie, who 
was on his way to visit her at Bordeaux. La Meilleraie having 
received secret instructions from the Cardinal, warmly pressed 
the Princess to come to Bourg to pay her respects to the Queen, 
assuring her that she would be well received, and that she might 
perhaps obtain by her entreaties favours which had been refused 
to her when asked for arms in hand. Clemence expressed the 
strongest repugnance to such a step, of which she foresaw the 
utter inutility ; but Bouillon and La Rochefoucauld advised her 
to overcome her feelings, and follow the advice of the Marechal, 
in order that she might not neglect the smallest chance of 
recovering the liberty of her husband. This argument deter- 
mined the Princess ; she therefore turned her galley towards 
Bourg, whilst the Marechal plied his oars to hasten in advance 
of her, and announce her arrival. 

This pacific interview so immediately succeeding, as in ro- 
mances of chivalry, the most murderous conflicts, excited the 
curiosity of the Court to the very highest pitch. Every one 
came forth to view the disembarkation of Clemence. She looked 
ill, and indeed she had suffered from fever during the last few days, 
and she held her arm in a scarf, having been bled the previous 
evening. But every one admired the nobleness and propriety of 
her demeanour, which, without hiding her devotion to her hus- 
band, displayed her respect for her Sovereign. " One of my 



1650.] INTERVIEW AT BOURG. 167 

" friends/' says Madame de Motteville, " who wrote me these 
" details, assured me that grief had made her beautiful."* 

Another writer declares that she appeared melancholy, but 
full of grace and gentleness, without any pride, but also without 
the smallest shadow of meanness. | On the contrary Made- 
moiselle, jealous of the new reputation which the Princess had 
acquired, directs against her a blow, which perhaps, in her 
womanish ideas, she considered to be the most deadly of all : 
" Her scarf was put on so awkwardly, as well as the rest of 
" her dress, that I found it difficult to avoid laughing."J As 
for the Duke d'Enghien, she is willing to acknowledge that 
he was " the prettiest child in the world." 

On entering the Queen's apartment, the Princess found there 
only the Queen, the King, Mademoiselle, and the Cardinal. 
She held her son by the hand, and had no one in her suite 
but Madame de Tourville. Without bowing to, or even look- 
ing at the Cardinal, Clemence placed herself on one knee before 
the Queen, and said to her : " Madam, I come to throw myself 
" at your Majesty's feet — to ask your forgiveness if I have clone 
" anything w r hich has displeased you. You must excuse the just 
" grief of a private gentlewoman who has had the honour of 
" marrying the first Prince of the Blood, now in a dungeon, and 
" who thought she had reason to apprehend the same fate for 
H his only son, that she now has the honour to present to you. 
iC Both he and I, Madam, entreat with tears in our eyes the 
i; liberty of Monsieur his father: grant it, Madam, for the sake 
" of those great actions which he has done for the glory of your 
" Majesty — grant it for the sake of the life which he has so 
" often risked for the service of the King and that of the State, 
" and grant it also to my very humble prayer." 

Anne of Austria replied : " I am very glad, my cousin, that 
" you are conscious of your fault : you now see that you had 
" taken the wrong means for obtaining w r hat you ask. Now 

* Memoirs, vol. iii., p. 525. 

f " Condseana, sine ulla vilitatis suspicione, innocentiam suam ingessit. 
" Suppliciter tristis, tanta modestia sermonem coinmendavit, et tain concinne 
" mcerens visa, ut in eosdem cum ilia effectus sentirent se omnes mutari." 
(Priolus, lib. v., c. 27 ; et Bayle, Diet., sub voce Breze'.) 

X Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. i., p. 189. We see another cause of her 
ill humour when she adds, " During her visit paid me the next day, she 
" spoke to me only of trifles." 



168 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vii. 

u that you are going to adopt a very opposite method, I will 
c< consider how and when I can give you the satisfaction which 
" you request." 

The contempt which the Princess showed towards the Car- 
dinal did not in the least discourage him. Wholly devoted to 
ambition, he was accessible neither to pride nor rancour. She 
had scarcely withdrawn to her lodging ere Mazarin came with 
the greatest effrontery to visit her. He was received with ex- 
treme coldness by Clemence, who with difficulty abstained from 
reproaches ; but Mazarin, without being in the slightest degree 
disconcerted, or losing his cheerfulness, advanced towards the 
Duke d'Enghien to kiss his hand. The child withdrew his hand 
angrily, and would not answer him a single word. 

The Princess remained only one night at Bourg ; the next 
day she continued her journey to Coutras. Before she went, she 
saw Lenet, who had been detained one day longer at Bordeaux 
to conclude his affairs : she related to him what had passed, 
and left him her instructions. 

As soon as the Cardinal heard of Lenet's arrival, he requested 
to speak to him privately. Instead of reproaches, he overpowered 
him with praises and compliments, affecting an extreme frank- 
ness. Then taking him by the hand, he led him to a window of 
his room which looked upon Bordeaux. "It is a strange 
" thing," exclaimed he, " what those people have got into their 
" heads ! In good faith, tell me what has Monsieur le Prince 
" done for that town which could have obliged it to risk all it 
" has risked in his service ?" 

" Sir," replied Lenet, " the Gascons have more generosity 
" than others. Besides which, they are all persuaded that your 
" Eminence wishes to oppress them, to gratify the resentment of 
" M. d'Epernon. They think that Monsieur le Prince was not 
" last year of opinion that they should be so persecuted, and that 
" you sought to ruin them ; they hate you, and they love him ; 
" he suffers, and you reign." 

Mazarin, proceeding to discuss public affairs, then began to 
excuse himself for his past conduct ; but it became necessary to 
interrupt the conversation ; midday was approaching ; it was the 
festival of St. Francis, and the pious Cardinal had not yet heard 
Mass ! He caused the Dukes de Bouillon and de la Rochefou- 



1650.] PIERRE LENET. 169 

cauld, as well as Lenet, to enter his coach with him. " Who 
" would have thought," said he, smiling, " eight days ago that 
" we should all four have been in one carriage together?" 
" All things happen in France," replied the author of the 

I Maxims.' 

Lenet added, " It is a great honour to me, Sir, to be in this 
" carriage in such company, but I shall never be happy until I 

II see in it also Monsieur le Prince ! " 

The Cardinal laughed. " All that will come in due time," 
said he. 

In the course of that day Lenet went to pay his respects to 
the Queen, and afterwards to Mademoiselle. The former, by the 
advice and according to the example of the Cardinal, gave him 
a most gracious reception. She could not, however, entirely re- 
strain her anger , suddenly she broke through her discourse, co- 
loured deeply, and exclaimed aloud, " Ah ! if one was not a Chris- 
" tian, what ought one not to do against those who come from a 
" rebellious town, who have been at Bellegarde, and who are 
" going straight to Stenay — to Madame de Longueville and 
" Monsieur de Turenne ! " 

A little stunned at this outburst, Lenet replied, however : 
" Allow me, Madam, to take the liberty of supplicating your 
" Majesty never to become incensed with those persons who are 
" faithful to their masters. ... I know very well, Madam, that 
" your Majesty is not speaking of me, because I have not been 
" at Bellegarde, and I am not going to Stenay ; but, Madam, 
" may God preserve your Majesty from so cruel a fate as that of 
" the late Queen-Mother, Mary of Medici ! And remember 
" that such a discourse as you have now been pleased to make, 
" would authorize all your dependents to abandon you, if ever 
" you should be persecuted under the name of the King your 
" son ! " 

The Queen, recovering quickly, saw that she must change the 
subject. " Have you not seen the King?" said she; and she 
immediately presented Lenet to her son. 

Mademoiselle's reception of Lenet was even more favourable. 
As soon as she perceived him, she approached him with "a blunt 
" and deliberate air," which was habitual to her, and said to him 
that she had almost a mind to embrace him. so much was she 



170 LIFE OF COND& [chap. vn. 

satisfied with all that he had done for his master ; " for/' she 
continued, " I do not at all love Monsieur le Prince, but yet I 
" love all those who have served him well." 

After dinner Lenet returned to the Cardinal, who redoubled 
his cajoleries, and detained him in a conference from seven o'clock 
in the evening till one in the morning. Mazarin laboured espe- 
cially to persuade Lenet that he had a sincere intention of 
liberating the Princes, trying by this means to prevent the alli- 
ance which he dreaded between the ancient Frondeurs and the 
friends of Conde. He tried too, but in vain, to discover how 
far the negotiation between these two parties had already ad- 
vanced. " Then," adds Lenet, " he spoke to me of the Duchess 
" de Longueville and of the Duke de la Eochefoucauld, as of 
" persons whose friendship it would not be easy to gain, because 
" they have friendship," said he, " only one for the other." — 
" If that is the case," said I, " you have only, Sir, to please one 
" to insure the friendship of both ; and I think you would easily 
" be able to please the Duchess by granting her the liberty of 
" Messieurs her brothers, and of Monsieur her husband." — " I 
" think," replied he, "that I should please her still more if I 
" kept back the latter !" * 

On the other hand, Lenet tried to entice the Cardinal by letting 
drop some hints of great alliances for his family ; by pointing out 
to him that his three nieces might perhaps marry the Prince of 
Conti, and the eldest sons of the Dukes de Bouillon and de la 
Rochefoucauld. At last they separated, each hoping he had 
deceived the other. " His Eminence," says Lenet, " embraced 
" me twice, and made too many protestations of esteem and 
" friendship for me to think them sincere." The next day, 
accordingly, Lenet went to rejoin the Princess at Coutras, whilst 
the Court embarked for Bordeaux. 

After several days of repose at Coutras, the Princess was 
obliged to separate herself from her brave friends. The Duke 
de Bouillon departed for Turenne, with the gentlemen of his 
suite, and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld for Verteuil, whilst 
Clemence herself turned her steps towards her father's house in 
Anjou. She charged Lenet to wait upon the Princess Dowager 
at Chatillon sur Loing, to give her an account of what had hap- 
* Lenet, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 475, 



1650.] THE CHATEAU OF MILLY. 171 

pened, and to soothe her anger on their having placed, without 
her permission, a garrison at Montrond. 

The reception by the Bordelais of the Queen Regent and the 
King was cold, silent, and without enthusiasm. They avoided as 
much as possible paying any mark of respect or honour to the Car- 
dinal. It was only towards Mademoiselle that they expressed any 
zeal or gratitude, for the good offices which she had rendered them 
during the negotiations. Mazarin, displeased as he was at such 
a reception, was not tempted to prolong his visit ; besides, his 
return was becoming necessary in opposition to the new efforts of 
the factious party at Paris, and of the Spaniards in Champagne. 
Therefore he hastened to re-establish in their employments Lavie 
and the other magistrates who had been expelled during the 
siege, and to provide for the most pressing affairs, whilst he ad- 
journed the others, such as the choice of a successor to the 
Duke d'Epernon ; after which he led the Court again towards 
Amboise and Fontainebleau. 

The Princess of Conde arrived without accident at Milly, near 
vSaumur. There she was joined by Lenet, who had found the Prin- 
cess Dowager at Chatillon, apparently in good health, but more 
avaricious and more timid than ever, and fearing, above all things, 
to compromise herself with the Court. " I then went," says he, 
" to Milly, whither the peculiar temper of the Marechal de Breze 
11 had led him to retire after his quarrel with the Cardinal de 
" Richelieu, his brother-in-law, in the zenith of his power. He 
" passed there the remainder of his days, going but very rarely 
" to the Court or elsewhere. He amused himself by hunting ; 
" and in truth I have seldom seen a spot where it could be more 
" agreeable or convenient than this. He read, and composed 
" love verses and other light poetry. He was completely managed 
" by a woman, the widow of one of his domestics, without beauty, 
" but of a quick and ready wit, who disposed of all his fortune, 
" up to the last moment of his life. He was not much beloved, 
" but very much feared and respected in his government, even 
" during the period of his disgrace. He was brave, skilful, and 
" very well informed ; he talked too much and too well ; he was 
" singular in many things, and affected to be so ; he was well- 
" bred, and courteous to his friends, and exactly the contrary to 
" those whom he did not like or esteem. He was a great enemy 



172 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vii. 

" to all constraint and ceremony. This house of Milly was an 
" ancient Chateau, which he had made comfortable. He had 
" caused a marble slab to be placed over the door, on which he 
" had engraved in golden letters these words : — 

'NULLI NISI VOCATI.' 

" And in order that those who did not understand Latin might 
" not pretend ignorance of its meaning, there was upon the same 
" marble, underneath, the following couplet : — 

1 Dans ce lieu de repos on ne veut point de bruit, 
1 Et nul n'y doit entrer qu'invite ou conduit/ 

" This inscription surprised me very much : its singularity in- 
" duced me to inquire into its motive ; and his old domestics 
" told me that the Duke de la Trimouille on one occasion paid 
" him a visit, which he found very troublesome ; and that on the 
" Duke's departure he immediately sent for the workmen neces- 
" sary for this inscription, in order that no one should in future 
" go to visit him unless after an invitation.* 

" The Princess did me the honour to show me her house 
" and all its ornaments. She offered me a present of a fine 
" set of tapestry, a fine bed of crimson velvet, embroidered with 
" gold, and the whole set of furniture, which I never would 
" accept, however much she pressed me, having resolved from 
" the commencement of these affairs not to receive any favour 
" from her, and to shun like a quicksand all the personal advan- 
" tages which I might have derived from them. It struck me that 
" some persons of her suite had not done quite the same ! " t 

Having concluded all her affairs at Milly, the Princess set 
off with her suite to establish her residence at Montrond. She 
first passed by Tours, where she was magnificently received in 
the Archbishop's* palace, although the Archbishop himself was 

* I find upon this subject another anecdote in Tallemant des Reaux 
(Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 44, ed. 1834) : " It is said that some advocates having 
" gone one day to speak to the Marechal, he reproved them sharply, asking 
" them how they came to be so bold as to call without being sent for, and 
" whether they had not read what there was over the gate. * Yes, Mon- 
" seigneur/ said one of them, * there is Nulli nisi vocati — None but advo- 
" cates V He began to laugh, and gave them audience." 

f Lenet, Memoirs, vol. ii., pp. 574 — 577. This Chateau of Milly (which 
was never completed) still exists ; it bears at present the name of Breze. 
It is about three leagues from Saumur, in the direction of the ancient abbey 
of Fontevrauld. (Guide Pittoresque, vol. i., Dept. de Maine et Loire, p. 16.) 



1650.] VALENgAY. 173 

absent. " She had," says Lenet, " acquired so great a reputation 
" in all that she had undertaken for the liberation of the Prince 
" her husband, that she was everywhere looked upon as a most 
" extraordinary woman." It was, however, rather the triumph 
of virtue than of genius. She had done what nearly any courage- 
ous woman devoted to her duty might have achieved in her place. 

From Tours, Clemence continuing her journey,, went to pass 
one day at Valencay. This Chateau, which then belonged to the 
Marquis of the same name, has become celebrated in our days 
by the possession of Prince Talleyrand, and the residence of 
King Ferdinand the Seventh. Let us here borrow the pen of an 
eloquent writer to describe that enchanting abode : — " This spot 
" is one of the most beautiful in the world, and no King pos- 
" sesses a more picturesque park — trees of finer growth, lawns 
"of a more exquisite green, or more gracefully undulated 
" ground. This fresh and wooded valley is an oasis in the midst 
" of the dreary plains which surround it, and which give no idea 
" of one's approach to it. One comes suddenly upon a ravine 
" thickly studded with rocks and forest trees, in the midst of 
" gardens of regal splendour, from the centre of which rises a 
" Spanish palace, full of poetry and grace, which reflects itself 
" from its rocky height upon the blue waters of the river be- 
" neath. It seems as though a dream had wafted us to some 
11 enchanted country, which would vanish at one's waking, and 
" which does in truth vanish at the end of a quarter of an hour, 
" when one only crosses the valley and follows the road to the 
" south. Then the endless plains, the yellow broom, the flat 
" and naked horizons reappear. What one has just seen, appears 
" imaginary." * 

On leaving Valencay the Princess pursued her route, without 
stopping, as far as Montrond, where she fixed her residence till 
the close of this year. Here, to my great regret, end the Me- 
moirs of Lenet. He had intended to continue them to the Peace 
of the Pyrenees, but unfortunately he did not live long enough 
to carry out this design, f His Memoirs appear to me distin- 
guished by their scrupulous accuracy, being drawn from the 
Diary which he kept at the very time when all these events 

* George Sand, Lettres (Tun Voyageur, vol. ii., p. 106. 
f See the Introduction of Messieurs Petitot and Monmerque, p. 24. 



174 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vii. 

were passing. We may convince ourselves of their truth by- 
comparing them with several other authentic documents of that 
period, such as " A Truthful History of all that has been done 
" or happened in Guyenne during the War of Bordeaux ;" seve- 
ral extracts from which have been printed as notes in the com- 
plete collection of the " Memoirs of France." We should only, 
I think, be a little on our guard against Lenet's inclination to as- 
cribe to himself the principal direction in all affairs, even when 
they more properly belonged to the Princess of Conde or to the 
Dukes de Bouillon and de la Rochefoucauld. 

Whilst the Princess was reaching Montrond, the Queen, who 
had long been detained at Amboise by illness, was on her way 
to Fontainebleau. She had desired the Duke of Orleans to come 
and join her there, and Gaston foresaw what she would ask of 
him ; therefore, to reassure his friends of the Fronde, he gave 
them his word of honour before he set off, that he would never 
consent to the prisoners at Marcoussy being transferred to Havre. 
He had scarcely arrived, however, ere the Queen's threats so com- 
pletely turned the head of that poor Prince — the most cowardly 
perhaps of whom history makes mention — that he unresistingly 
signed the warrant which she presented to him. Measures were 
instantly taken for its execution : that same night the Count 
d'Harcourt was directed to set off with a strong body of cavalry 
and conduct Conde and his brothers to their new prison. 
" Monsieur le Prince has since told me/' says Cardinal de Eetz, 
"that if they had not removed him from Marcoussy, he should 
" infallibly have made his escape by a project which was then 
" on the point of execution."* 

This project was due to the zeal of Monsieur Arnauld, 
Marechal de Camp. A boat had been constructed of boiled j 
leather, which rolled up in a small compass, and which could be 
carried on horseback to the banks of the moat which surrounded 
Marcoussy. Arnauld undertook to convey this boat at* night 
beneath the walls of the fortress ; a soldier who was in the secret 
was, with the assistance of the Princes, to cut the throats of 
his comrades and convey the prisoners in the boat which was 
re^ady for them ; whilst a body of cavalry drawn up on the oppo- 

* De Retz, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 174, ed. 1817. 



1650.] HIS VERSES ON COUNT D'HARCOUKT. 175 



site bank was to protect their landing and proceed with them to 
Stenay.* 

Being obliged to relinquish this hope on leaving Marcoussy, the 
Princes began their journey on the 15th of November, under the 
charge of the Sieur de Bar, and escorted by the Count d'Harcourt. 
Some gibes against this officer served to dispel Conde's grief. 
Here follows a stanza which he composed on the way, and which 
was soon circulated all over France : — 

" Cet homme gros et court, 

" Si fameux dans Thistoire, 

" Ce grand Comte d'Harcourt, 

" Tout rayonnant de gloire, 
" Qui secourut Casal, et qui reprit Turin, 
" Est maintenant Recors de Jules Mazarin I" 

They proceeded by short day's journeys on account of the 
escort, and the Duke de Longueville had thus the mortification 
of passing slowly over, as a captive, the very province of which 
he was the Governor. One night in an inn the Prince of Conde 
attempted to escape, but De Bar watched him so narrowly that 
he found it impossible.'!' At last, after a ten days' march, the 
prisoners arrived at the citadel of Havre, a fortress in the hands 
of the Duchess d'Aiguillon — that is to say, of Cardinal Mazarin, 
this lady being completely devoted to the interests of the Court. 

Reassured on this point, the Cardinal led the Court back from 
Fontainebleau to Paris, and departed himself towards Champagne 
to take the command of the army. But the various parties in the 
capital were far more to be apprehended by him than the enemies 
on the frontier. On the very day after his departure (it was on 
the 2nd of December, at the opening of the Parliament after 
the vacations) the Councillor Deslandes Payen presented a peti- 
tion, in the name of the Princess of Conde, claiming the effect 
of the Declaration of the month of October, 1648, and conse- 
quently the liberty of her husband and her brothers-in-law. This 
petition, which had been written by the First President him- 
self, sounded agreeably to the ears of the Magistrates, by some 
expressions which were not generally employed by Princes and 

* Memoirs of Abbe Arnauld, p. 289, ed. 1824. 
•j- Memoirs of Motteville, -vol. iii., p. 537. 

N 2 



176 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vii. 

Princesses : it began thus : — " Humbly supplicates, Claire 
" Clemence de Maille," and was addressed not to " Messieurs," 
but to " Messeigneurs du Parlement." The deliberation on this 
petition was, however, postponed, in order to afford the King's 
Counsel time to give in their opinions. 

That same day came tidings which still more disposed 
people's minds to compassion for the House of Conde. The Prin- 
cess Dowager had just sunk beneath her sorrows : she died on the 
2nd of December at Chatillon sur Loing, with true sentiments 
of Christian piety. She desired her Confessor in her last 
moments to go and see the Queen and tell her that she died her 
very humble servant, although she died of the grief which had 
been caused her by the persecution of her children. But what 
afflicted her still more was the irregular conduct of Madame de 
Longueville. " My dear friend," said she to the Countess de 
Brienne, who was with her when she expired, " send word to that 
" poor benighted creature at Stenay the state in which you see 
" me, and let her learn how to die."* These noble expressions 
had their effect after many long years : this good seed remained 
long hidden in the ground, but we shall see it at length pro- 
duce enduring fruits. 

The partisans of Conde, however, at Paris were not slumber- 
ing : they had formed a little secret Council, which assembled 
generally in the hotel of the Princess Palatine. Anne of 
Gonzaga, Princess Palatine, was well known by her wit and her 
gallantries. According to the Memoirs of Montpensier,f " The 
" Duke de Guise, Archbishop of Rheims though he was, had 
" paid court to her in a most extraordinary manner ; he made 
" love as people do in romances ; when he quitted France she 
" quitted it too. Soon after she dressed herself in men's clothes, 
" and went straight to Besancon in order to go from thence into 
" Flanders ; she called herself Madame de Guise ; when she wrote 
" or spoke, she talked of her husband ; in short, she omitted no- 
" thing which could declare her marriage. Whilst she was at 
" Besancon, and he at Brussels, he fell in love with another lady, 
" whom he married ; then she returned to Paris, and reassumed 
" her name of the Princess Anne, as though nothing had hap- 

* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iii., p. 547. 
f Vol. i., p. 306, ed. 1746. 



1651.] MAZARIN RETURNS TO PARIS. 177 

" pened." — Having thus very happily returned to her single state, 
she married in secret, some years after, Prince Edward, one 
of the younger sons of the Elector Palatine ; but as she was 
very prone to gallantry, and her husband very poor and very 
jealous, they did not agree extremely well. She had conceived 
a great enthusiasm for the noble qualities of the Prince of Conde, 
and she drew around her in his service the Duchess de Chatillon, 
the Duke de Nemours, the Presidents Viole and de Nesmond, 
and many others; she also negotiated with the chiefs of the 
Fronde. 

In the midst of these cabals the Prince's party was suddenly 
stunned by the news of a great victory which had just been 
achieved by Mazarin. On arriving at the frontier the Cardinal 
had assembled a considerable army and undertaken the siege of 
Rhetel, a town reduced by the enemy a few months previously. 
The Governor of the town sent word to Turenne that he engaged 
to hold out at least four days longer, and the Yiscount set off to his 
assistance, accompanied by Don Estevan de Gamarra and his 
Spaniards. But Rhetel was surrendered by the Governor the very 
day after his promise, and an occasion presented itself for falling 
upon the troops of Turenne and Gamarra unawares. The French 
were commanded by the Marechal du Plessis on the field of 
battle, and watched by the Cardinal Mazarin from the top of the 
church tow r er of Rhetel. The enemy were completely routed, Don 
Estevan and the greater number of his officers were taken pri- 
soners, twelve hundred men were left dead on the field, and 
Turenne could muster only a hundred and fifty cavalry in 
his flight towards Montniedy.* 

The Cardinal returned in triumph to Paris : he arrived the last 
day of the year, and expected to find every party bowing lowly 
before the victorious Minister. But, on the contrary, after the 
first moments of surprise and terror, the people became more 
determined than ever to oppose him. As is well said by the 
author of the Maxims — " Fortune so capriciously ruled the 
" events of this battle that Monsieur de Turenne, who had lost 
" it, became thereby necessary to the Spaniards, and obtained the 
" entire command of their army ; and, on the other hand, the 
*•' Cardinal, who claimed for himself all the glory of this action, 
* Ramsay, History of Turenne, vol. i., pp. 264 — 271. 



178 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vii. 

" renewed in every breast the disgust and fear of his ascend- 
" ency."* Thus it was to the vanquished that this victory brought 
advantage ! 

To understand clearly the state of politics at this period, we 
must recall the events at Montrond and at Bordeaux. Pity for 
the unfortunate fate of Conde, admiration for his great military 
exploits, sympathy for the devotion of his young wife, had taken 
possession of all hearts. The chiefs of the Fronde, without par- 
taking of this general feeling, could not entirely neglect it 
without compromising the sole support of their tottering power — 
their popularity. They thought, besides, that Mazarin, after 
his victory, would cease to treat them with caution, because he 
would cease to want them ; and that he would even try to crush 
them, in order that he might reign alone. Their chief leader, 
the Coadjutor of Paris, had also other personal motives : he 
wished to become Cardinal de Retz ; and Mazarin had lately 
irritated him by refusing his nomination at Rome. For all 
these combined reasons the ancient Frondeurs in the Parlia- 
ment zealously joined the new ones (that is, the partisans of 
Conde), to support the petition of Madame la Princesse. It 
was in vain that the Advocate-General, Talon, opposed it with 
some miserable cavils; as, for example, that " The aforesaid 
" Lady, Princess of Conde, did not prove that she had been 
" authorized by Monsieur her husband — an essential condition, 
" without which no woman could act in law ! " The Parlia- 
ment, by a large majority, decided that they would make remon- 
strances to the Queen to obtain the liberty of the Princes. 

Without limiting themselves to this assistance, the chiefs of 
the Fronde proposed to the friends of Conde a close alliance and 
a formal treaty ; but La Rochefoucauld, who came to Paris to 
take part in these negotiations, and was concealed at the hotel of 
the Princess Palatine, leaned rather to a reconciliation with Ma- 
zarin, who held the keys of Havre, and who, without intrigues 
or revolutions, could by a single order restore liberty to the 
Princes. The Duke had several nocturnal conferences with the 
Cardinal at the Palais Royal, where he went alone and disguised, 
and where the Cardinal came himself to open the door, his 
candle in his hand. 

* Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld, p. 154, ed. 1804. 



1651.] COMBINATION AGAINST MAZARIN. 179 

Mazarin, however, always promised, but never kept his word. 
The month of January passed without anything being resolved 
upon ; and the Duke at last told the Cardinal that if he did not 
obtain that very moment a positive answer, he should be obliged 
to conclude other engagements, and could not again return to 
the Palais Royal. This frank and honest declaration produced no 
effect. Men who are themselves deceivers can never believe (and 
therein lies their principal punishment) in the sincerity of others. 
Mazarin did not think the thing so pressing as he was told it was : 
he said " Adieu," with a smile, and allowed the departure of La 
Rochefoucauld, who instantly returned to the Princess Palatine, 
and signed, for himself and for Madame de Longueville, a treaty 
with the Coadjutor and the Fronde. One of the principal con- 
ditions was the marriage of the Prince of Conti with Made- 
moiselle de Chevreuse. They found means to draw the weak- 
minded Gaston into this alliance, in spite of all his misgivings. 
Caumartin, secretary to the Coadjutor, followed him everywhere 
for several days, the treaty in one pocket and an inkstand in the 
other : at last he caught him between two doors, put the pen 
between his fingers, and Monsieur signed, said Madame de Chev- 
reuse, as he would have signed a compact with the Devil had 
he been afraid of being surprised by his guardian angel ! * 

This powerful combination was preparing the downfall of 
Mazarin ; an imprudence committed by the Cardinal himself 
hastened it. One night at Court he had the folly to compare the 
chiefs of the Fronde to Fairfax and to Cromwell. These words 
were repeated by the Duke of Orleans to the Coadjutor, and by 
the Coadjutor to the Parliament. The indignation they excited 
was the more violent because they were not entirely without 
truth. Moved with anger, the Parliament allowed itself to be 
drawn into a petition, addressed to his Majesty, entreating that 
he would dismiss Cardinal Mazarin from his presence and his 
councils. The people, feeling their ancient hatred revive, 
lighted bonfires in the streets at the news of this petition ; and 
Gaston, taking courage, publicly declared that he should join 
himself to the magistrates to obtain the liberty of his cousins. 

Mazarin plainly saw that he could no longer struggle against 
such an outbreak in the capital; but, although losing the game, 
* Memoirs of De Retz, vol. ii., p/200, ed. IS 17. 



180 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap, vii, 

he did not throw up his cards. He resolved to quit Paris, to 
retire to Havre, to treat with Conde' himself if he could, and in 
any case to form a body of troops by collecting all the garrisons 
of the towns which were still at his disposal. The Queen was 
to remain at the Palais Royal in the hope of regaining her influ- 
ence over the Duke of Orleans ; but if she could not succeed, she 
promised to join her favourite, and recommence a civil war. 

With these views Mazarin first made the Queen sign an order 
to the Sieur de Bar, directing him to do whatever might be com- 
manded him on the subject of the Princes by the Cardinal. 
Then taking leave of her Majesty the evening of the 6th of 
February, Mazarin disguised himself as an officer, put on a hat 
and feathers, and went out by the Porte de Richelieu, where 
he found an escort of three hundred mounted men, commanded 
by his countryman and his friend, the Count de Broglie ; and 
at the head of this little troop he moved slowly on towards 
Havre. 

Anne of Austria, remaining at Paris, proposed several times, 
but in vain, an interview to the Duke of Orleans. Gaston mis- 
trusting, and with reason, his own weakness, refused to see her. 
Then the Queen, more than ever devoted to her darling Cardinal, 
made secret preparations for carrying off the young King in 
the night of the 9th of February. Unfortunately for her, the - 
chiefs of the Fronde received intelligence of her design. They 
hastened to the Duke of Orleans to ask for an order to retain her 
by force ; but Gaston, quite terror-stricken, ensconced himself 
in his bed, and refused to give any direction. Then the Co- 
adjutor and the Duke de Beaufort, on their own responsibility, 
took energetic measures, to which the feelings of the people no less 
quickly responded. The drums beat in every street ; the bour- 
geois ran to arms ; their former captains placed themselves anew 
at their head ; the gates of the town were speedily guarded ; the 
Palais Royal was assailed, and the Queen's own guards showed 
no zeal in defending what they considered only as the interest of 
a minister, or rather a minion, who had become hateful to them. 

In this feeling, which was almost general, not a drop of blood 
was shed, and yet what a strange vicissitude ! The all-powerful 
favourite a proscribed fugitive, and the Queen Regent almost a 
prisoner in her own palace ! 



1651.] THE QUEEN DETAINED AS A PRISONER. 181 

In the midst of all these tumults the Queen showed as much 
courage in undergoing, as Gaston had shown cowardice in direct- 
ing them. Without appearing at all disturbed, she declared to 
every one that she never had entertained the least idea of carry- 
ing off her son. Hearing some few bourgeois, more forward 
than the rest, who had entered the court of the Palais 
Royal, and who were calling loudly, " Let them show us the 
" King ! we will see the King !" Anne of Austria commanded all 
the doors to be thrown open, herself received the insurgents, and 
conducted them to the room of the young King, Louis XI V., 
who was slumbering sweetly and calmly. " These mutineers," 
says a lady of the Court, " were delighted with this frankness : 
" they all placed themselves close to the King's bed, the curtains 
" of which they had undrawn, and then, seized with strong feel- 
" ings of affection, poured forth on him a thousand blessings. 
" They watched him a long while asleep, and could scarcely 
u enough admire him. Their anger ceased ; and though they 
11 had entered like men half beside themselves, they went out 
" again like loyal and submissive subjects !" 

The freedom of the Princes naturally followed as a consequence 
upon the Queen's constraint. By the very next day it was re- 
solved in the Parliament, in the presence of the Duke of Orleans, 
that La Vrilliere, Secretary of State, should go and carry to the 
Sieur de Bar the order which the Queen had already signed for 
the liberation of the prisoners, and that La Vrilliere should be 
accompanied in this mission by the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, 
the President Viole, and several other Deputies. A new De- 
claration was issued against the Cardinal, by which he was en- 
joined to leave the kingdom within a fortnight, with his family 
and his domestics. 

Some of the magistrates, however, who had acted the most 
courageously in favour of Conde, and against Mazarin, appeared 
grieved at their own triumph. These men of integrity loved none 
but legal means : they had a horror of tumult or sedition ; they 
held the Majesty of Kings as sacred, and they knew how to prefer 
virtue to victory. The First President Mole, especially, conti- 
nued in his place in the Great Chamber, and, with his accus- 

* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iv., p. 80, ed. 1723. 



182 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vn. 

tomed calmness, was judging private and individual affairs, but 
he showed by his countenance and his demeanour that greater 
things filled his mind. Melancholy, says De Retz, appeared in 
his eyes, but that kind of melancholy which touches and en- 
thralls us, because it has in it nothing of dejection.* When 
Monsieur informed him that the lettre de cachet for the 
liberation of the Princes would be despatched within two 
hours, Mole replied, with a deep sigh, " Monsieur le Prince is at 
" liberty, and the King — the King our master — is a prisoner !" 
Gaston, who every now and then — that is to say whenever he was 
not frightened — spoke well in public, replied instantly, " The 
u King was a prisoner in the hands of Mazarin, but thank 
" God, he is no longer so !" And the Conseillers des En- 
quetes exclaimed, like an echo, " He is no longer so ! he is no 
" longer so!" 

Like the moth which is for ever fluttering around the hostile 
flame which has already wounded and will wound it again — thus 
Mazarin, proscribed by the Parliament and driven forth by the 
people, still hovered in the neighbourhood of Paris, always hoping 
to be recalled, or at least rejoined, by the Queen. Already could 
he see tokens of the downfall of his fortunes by the change in 
all those about him — already had the officers of his household 
laid aside their respectful bearing, and begun to greet the Car- 
dinal with clouded looks and bitter words. On hearing what 
had passed on the 10th of February at Paris, he felt that he 
had not a moment to lose, if he still wished to negotiate with 
the Princes; therefore he hastened his march, and arrived 
before Havre on the morning of the 13th at sun-rise. But 
the news of his reverse of fortune had preceded him. De 
Bar declared drily, that with regard to his prisoners he should 
act according to the Queen's orders, but that as for the fortress 
of Havre, he was resolved to maintain it for the Duchess d' Ai- 
guillon ; that he would not receive the Cardinal's troops, and 
that he should only allow his Eminence himself to enter. Ma- 
zarin had recourse first to cajoleries and then to threats, without, 
however, being able to shake De Bar's resolution. Whilst he was 
still parleying before the gates of the town, a courier arrived from 
Paris, announcing that the Deputies who carried the order for 
* De Retz, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 259, ed. 1817. 



1651.] HIS CAPTIVITY CEASES, 183 

the liberation of the Princes would be at Havre before night. 
Then it was no longer possible for Mazarin to treat with 
Conde, and propose his liberation from prison as one of the condi- 
tions, but he could still reserve to himself the merit of being the 
first to announce this happy news ; and, according to the memoirs 
of those times, " Not being able to play the part of a minister, 
" he wished at least to play the part of a courier."* Leaving 
therefore his escort, he entered the citadel and presented him- 
self to the Princes. 

At the unexpected sight of his mortal enemy Conde could not 
repress a gesture of surprise, but his reception displayed neither 
arrogance on the one hand nor meanness on the other. The 
Cardinal all but fell upon his knees, and protested that he had 
taken no part in the imprisonment of the Princes ; that it was 
the act of the Duke of Orleans and the Frondeurs ; and that 
the Queen had just granted their liberty to his own earnest 
entreaties and prayers. Conde replied, in a few words only, 
that he was grateful to find her Majesty now did him justice, 
and that he would serve her faithfully as he had always done. 
Without taking any notice of the Cardinal's overtures of con- 
ciliation, he continued treating him with the utmost politeness, 
which bordered, however, a little upon disdain. He ordered 
dinner to be served for himself and his brothers, made Mazarin 
take a seat at their table, and civilly drank to his health. The 
Prince of Conti and the Duke de Longueville appeared less polite, 
and in a greater hurry to leave the prison. After the repast, 
Mazarin asked Conde for a private interview ; and finding him- 
self alone with him, he redoubled his professions and entreaties, 
imploring his pardon for what had passed, and his protection 
for the future. He urged that the Throne was tottering before 
the Fronde, and that the only means of rendering it firm and 
stable was a close alliance between himself as confidant of the 
Queen, and the Princes of the Blood. Conde listened coldly to 
him, and answered but little : at last he went down stairs, still 
followed by Mazarin, and entered a coach with his brothers and 
the Marechal de Grammont. At the last moment Mazarin threw 
himself before him, and embraced his boot ; Conde, turning 
round, with a formal salutation, said only " Farewell, Monsieur 
* Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iv., p. 87. 



184 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vii. 

" le Cardinal."* The fallen Minister for a long while followed 
with his eyes the coach, which seemed to bear away from him 
his last hopes. He saw Conde take the road towards Paris, to 
the sound of salvos of artillery, and amidst the acclamations of 
the populace — that same populace which, thirteen months before, 
had lighted bonfires at the news of his imprisonment ! 

* Account of Conde himself to Mademoiselle de Montpensier. See her 
Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 5, ed. 1 746. 



1651.] HIS JOURNEY FROM HAVRE TO PARIS. 185 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Conde arrives at Paris — Arrival of the Princess from Montrond — Power of 
the House of Conde at this period — Erroneous Policy of the Prince — 
Fresh dissensions with the Court — He retires to St. Maur, and to Mont- 
rond — Renewal of the Civil War — Conde at Bordeaux — His campaign on 
the Charente — Return of Mazarin to France — Military movements on the 
Loire — Mademoiselle de Montpensier at Orleans — Her Courtship hy 
Charles II. of England — Victory of Turenne at Jargeau. 

" I felt," said Conde himself some days afterwards to his cou- 
sin Mademoiselle de Montpensier, w I felt unspeakable joy when 
" I saw myself out of Havre, and with my sword at my side !" * 
Like an eagle bursting through the bars of his cage, and once 
more soaring tow r ards the skies, already he stretches forth his wings 
to protect his nest, or his talons to seize his prey. What earthly 
happiness can be compared to that of the prisoner who, after a 
grievous and protracted expectation, and hopes often disappointed, 
at length sees the door of his dungeon open before him ? With 
what transports does he contemplate, as though it were for the 
first time, that sky resplendent with brightness, those verdant 
meads, and yonder bright and gushing stream ! After a long 
night — or rather a slow death — he feels, as it were, born anew ; 
but as though one could be born with a complete knowledge of 
objects, and a full development of mind ! Pleasure, fortune, 
family, fatherland — all these are summed up to the poor pri- 
soner in that one word " Liberty ! " Ah ! why did Conde forget 
the sorrows of his captivity and the happy day of his deliverance, 
when, twenty years later But let me not anticipate my story. 

The night of his release Conde slept at the Chateau of Gros- 
menil, four leagues from Havre, where he met the Duke de la 
Eochefoucauld and the President Viole, and heard from them all 
the details of the late events. 

Two days afterwards he made a solemn and public entry with 
his brothers into Paris. He received at St. Denis the congratu- 
* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. ii., p. 5. 



186 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. viii. 

lations of that very same Guitaut who had arrested him, and 
who now came to congratulate him on the part of the Queen ! 
The Duke of Orleans had also advanced as far as La Chapelle 
to meet his cousin, bringing with him in his coach the Coadjutor 
and the Duke de Beaufort. Conde embraced them all, as though 
he had forgotten his ancient feuds with the Fronde. Cries of 
joy arose from the countless multitude which lined the road : 
some mounted on the roofs of houses, others upon the trees 
which lined the plain ; every one wished again to see and hail 
the hero. Conde, who had supplied himself with money and 
jewels, distributed them to all those who surrounded him. 
He had nothing left but his sword, when, hearing a young officer 
say how happy he should be in possessing it, " Here it is," said 
the Prince with kindness ; " may it gain for you the baton of a 
" Marechal de France !" * It is added that the young officer 
proved himself worthy of this gift : he attained the rank of 
Brigadier, and twenty-four years later was killed when fighting 
under Conde's own banner at the battle of SenefF. 

The Princes went first to the Palais Royal, where the Queen, 
both sick and sorrowful, had placed herself in her bed to re- 
ceive them. The compliments on either side were very cold, 
and soon over. From thence, always accompanied by the accla- 
mations of the populace, the Princes went to the Luxembourg, 
the palace of the Duke of Orleans. A great supper was there 
awaiting them, which lasted till very late at night. A thousand 
healths were drunk to the Princes and their friends, and every 
insult was heaped upon the fallen Minister. Conde alone had the 
generosity to say that the absent ought to be spared. 

The next day Conde and his brothers went to thank the Par- 
liament for its declarations in their favour, and receive its good 
wishes and congratulations ; whilst the rejoicings of the populace 
lasted several days more, in fire-works, banquets in the streets, 
and noisy acclamations. A panegyrist adds, with much simpli- 
city, and without intending any malicious meaning, " That the 
" drunkenness (Vivresse) of the capital was never yet so great ! "t 

In the midst of these rejoicings the Duchess de Longueville 
arrived from Stenay, and the Princess and her son from Mont- 
rond. It was a joyful family reunion. Conde ceased to treat 
* Desormeaux, vol. ii., p. 455. t Ibid. 



1651.] GREAT POWER OF HIS HOUSE. 187 

his wife with the contempt which he had shown her ever since 
their marriage, and for the first time manifested towards her 
friendship and regard. " I went to see Madame la Princesse 
'•' on her return/' says Mademoiselle ; " she appeared to me on 
" that day more quick than usual ; I staid only a short time ; 
" she was so transported with joy at seeing so much company 
" in her house." * We may perhaps be allowed to think that 
her joy was rather caused by seeing her husband out of prison, 
and herself well received by him. 

At this period the House of Conde seemed to have attained 
the utmost pitch of greatness. The Parliament, the Fronde, 
the nobility — every chief of every party — had united for its 
defence, and each in turn sought its support. On its side were 
enlisted the most highly honoured magistrates, the most skilful 
politicians, the most valiant soldiers. The favour of the common 
people responded to this general alliance of the great. Its ene- 
my, the Cardinal Mazarin, repulsed at Havre, and become more 
than ever the object of general hatred, had at length decided upon 
leaving the kingdom, and had found an asylum at Briihl, the 
country-house of the Elector, near Cologne. From this retreat 
he continued to govern Anne of Austria as absolutely as though 
he had been still at the Palais Royal ; and every one of his let- 
ters became an order, without appeal, to his submissive mistress. 
But the Queen, weakened in general estimation by this foreign 
influence, and become a mark for all the combined resentments 
aimed at her favourite, no longer possessed any real power, and 
remained almost a prisoner in the midst of her own Court. 

In these first moments it would not have been difficult for 
Conde (and many of his friends advised it) to deprive the Queen 
of her authority, and shut her up in the Yal de Grace, whilst a 
declaration from the Parliament might transfer the Regency to 
the Duke of Orleans, or perhaps even to Conde 5 himself. The 
Duke de la Rochefoucauld — a very competent judge in these 
matters — says that all parties would willingly have agreed to 
this measure. " But,'' adds he, " Monsieur le Prince, who re- 
" turned as it were in triumph, was still too much dazzled with 
" the splendour of his liberation to see very distinctly all that he 
" might undertake. Perhaps, too, the greatness of the under- 
* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. ii., p. 7. 



188 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. viii. 

" taking prevented him from seeing its facility." * He let pass 
the favourable opportunity, which, once lost, never returns. He 
thought he could safely trust a woman accustomed to dominion, 
and whose wishes were all centered in the return of her favourite 
Above all, he did not sufficiently consider that the union of the 
parties which he had found on his liberation, and on which 
rested his own power, must needs be temporary, and that all the 
new friends who had attached themselves to him during the 
storm against a common danger, would drop from him like the 
wings of Icarus, at the first gleam of sunshine. He must either 
strike at once, or soon find himself disarmed. But the whole 
history of Conde is a proof that a consummate genius in war is 
sometimes wholly unskilful in the conduct of a faction. 

Instead of those bold but yet prudent measures which would 
have destroyed the root of the evil, and anticipated the discords to 
come, the Prince allowed himself to be lured by the proposals of 
the Queen. He consented to accept from her, both for himself 
and his brothers, the towns and the offices of which they had 
been deprived. He received permission to re-establish all the 
regiments belonging to their family. He accepted the govern- 
ment of Guyenne in lieu of that of Burgundy, which was desired 
for the Duke d'Epernon ; but Conde reserved for himself all the 
fortified towns of the province which he resigned. He entered 
into a secret negotiation, having for its object to obtain the 
government of Auvergne for the Duke de Nemours, the govern- 
ment of Provence for the Prince of Conti, the fortified town of 
Blaye for the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, and several other 
favours for himself and his friends ; and on these conditions he 
consented to the Cardinal's return. His pretensions were so ex- 
cessive, that the Cardinal himself advised the Queen not to accept 
them, and to wait for better times. But this negotiation, which 
was soon seen through, cooled many of Conde's friends, who 
wished to oppose, as good Frenchmen, the restoration of an evil 
Minister. Conde was never able to perceive the truth, that every 
statesman, however illustrious he may be, cannot form any con- 
siderable party for his own private grandeur and glory, and that 
he must link them firmly with some great public interest. 

At the same time that Conde showed himself so eager for the 
* Memoirs, p. 169, ed. 1804. 



1651.] HIS ERRONEOUS POLICY. 189 

interests of his relations and connections, he was accused of not 
being sufficiently zealous for the advancement of his friends. 
The Duke de Bouillon appeared very much displeased with him 
on this account, and the Viscount de Turenne openly declared 
that, having fulfilled his pledges for the deliverance of the 
Princes, he no longer considered himself linked to their party. 
It must be owned, however, that the demands of the Prince's 
friends were so numerous and so exorbitant, that even Royal 
authority would have found it difficult to satisfy them. One day 
that Conde hardly knew what answers to give, and saw no means 
for rewarding even a fourth part of those who had served him 
during his imprisonment, he could not forbear exclaiming, 
" How happy is the Duke de Beaufort in owing his liberty only 
" to himself and his own domestics ! " * 

Private disappointments, moreover, became envenomed by 
public differences. A controversy on privileges arose between 
the Parliament of Paris and a meeting of the nobles, which was 
held at the house of the Duke de Nemours. Each side claimed 
Conde's support — the noblemen alleging as claims their military 
actions, and the magistrates their favourable decrees. Conde, 
finding himself thus embarrassed, thought to avoid compromis- 
ing himself by maintaining a strict neutrality, and leaving the 
management of this affair to the Duke of Orleans. Gaston de- 
cided in favour of the Parliament, and the nobility discontinued 
its meetings, having previously drawn from the Queen Regent a 
Royal Declaration promising that the States-General should be 
convoked before the close of the year to judge all these ques- 
tions. But the timid policy of Monsieur le Prince on this occa- 
sion cooled for his interests not only the nobles whom he had 
forsaken, but also the Parliament which had prevailed, each 
party accusing him of weakness and ingratitude. 

At Court the Prince had the misfortune to raise against him- 
self all the force of female hatred. We have already seen that 
one of the principal conditions of the agreement signed at the 
house of the Princess Palatine, and accepted by the imprisoned 
Princes, was the marriage of the Prince of Conti with Made- 
moiselle de Chevreuse. This marriage, already arranged, was 
broken off very abruptly and with great harshness by Conde. 
* Memoirs of Motte7 ille, vol. iv., p. 156. 

O 



190 LIFE OF COND& [chap. viii. 

Good reasons were certainly not wanting for this, Mademoiselle 
de Chevreuse being known by everybody to be the mistress of the 
Coadjutor ; but Conde might have employed gentler means and 
more respectful expressions. The result was, that the Princess 
Palatine and the Duchess de Chevreuse, violently irritated, again 
threw themselves into the Queen's party, and drew along with 
them the Coadjutor and his friends. 

Discord penetrated even into Conde's own family. Monsieur 
de Longueville was much displeased with the conduct of his 
wife, and not much pleased with that of his brothers-in-law. 
Delighted to find himself out of prison and re-established in his 
government of Normandy, he wished for nothing but peace and 
tranquillity. Madame de Longueville, on the contrary, advo- 
cated the most violent measures, even civil war, only in order 
that she might have some valid pretext for living apart from her 
husband, " whom she had never loved," says Gondy, " and whom 
" for some time past she had begun to fear."* 

For all these reasons which I have given in detail, a few weeks 
sufficed to dissolve that formidable combination which had driven 
forth Mazarin and recalled Conde. The Queen, always skilfully 
directed by the letters of the former from Bruhl, seized the pro- 
pitious moment for resuming her authority. She dismissed 
several of her Ministers whom she thought not in her interest, 
and treated Gaston's remonstrances upon this subject with cold 
contempt. She held several nocturnal conferences with Gondy, 
and formed an alliance with him, and several other chiefs of the 
Ancient Fronde, thus becoming able to control a part of the 
populace of Paris, and the armed bourgeois who surrounded her 
palace. More irritated than ever against the Prince of Conde, 
she desired again to seize his person. With this view she was 
brooding over two different projects : one suggested by the Co- 
adjutor, of arresting the Prince in broad day, at the apartments 
in the Luxembourg, the first time he should go to visit Gaston. 
The other, which was much more violent, was the device of 
the Marechal d'Hocquincourt : he proposed to assail the Hotel 
de Conde with an armed force during the night, and thus sur- 
prise Monsieur le Prince in bed. " Consider, I entreat you," 
says Gondy in his Memoirs, " if such a design was practicable, 
* Memoirs of Retz, vol. ii., p. 340, ed. 1817. 



1651.] NEW DESIGNS FOR HIS ARREST. 191 

" without bloodshed, in a house full of suspicion, and against a 
" man of the greatest courage in the world."* 

At this period Conde was still negotiating with the Court, and 
thought himself on the eve of a conclusion. Judge what was 
his rage when he learnt by secret intelligence that his liberty- 
was in danger, and perhaps even his life ! On this occasion he 
could not control the violence of his temper : instead of only 
taking sufficient but discreet precautionary measures, he made a 
great uproar, summoned to his assistance a crowd of gentlemen, 
barricadoed the windows of the H6tel de Conde, and placed 
videttes in his garden. Anne of Austria expressed great sur- 
prise at these preparations, but did not on her side neglect the 
opportunity of assembling troops at the Palais Royal. For seve- 
ral days the two parties remained thus face to face, and on one 
occasion Monsieur le Prince narrowly escaped being attacked or 
arrested on meeting, when nearly alone out walking, the King, 
who was on his return from bathing at Suresne. 

Condi's suspicions being once awakened, became perhaps ex- 
treme. Besides, as usually happens to Princes, his friends, wish- 
ing to exalt their own value by bringing great news, were 
constantly led to exaggeration of small events. At last, on the 
6th of July, at two o'clock in the morning, Conde, being then 
in bed, saw one of his gentlemen, named Ricousse, enter hur- 
riedly. " Monseigneur !" exclaimed he, " your hotel is in- 
" vested !" At the same moment another of his gentlemen 
rushed into the room to announce that two companies of the Royal 
Guards were advancing by the Rue des Boucheries. After the 
event, it was discovered that these Guards had been set in mo- 
tion for a wholly pacific object — to prevent some smugglers from 
bringing into the town their waggon -loads of wine. But in the 
agitation of this first moment Conde arose, dressed himself in 
haste, mounted his horse with his attendants, himself being the 
seventh in the cavalcade, and left Paris by the Porte St. Mi- 
chel. Having arrived in the open country before sun-rise, he re- 
mained some time on the high road waiting for news of the Prince 
of Conti, whom he had sent to forewarn. But on a sudden 
he thought he heard the sound of a number of horses advancing 
at full trot. He has no doubt that it must be a squadron of 
* Memoirs of Retz, vol. ii., p. 327, ed. 1817. 

o 2 



192 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. viii. 

cavalry which had been sent in pursuit of him ! On this he spurs 
his horse, and arrives at full gallop near Meudon ! The sound, 
however, which he had heard proceeded only from a troop of 
villagers, who were driving to market their asses, laden with ve- 
getables. " Thus," as an historian of our day truly states, "a 
" strange freak of fortune made the most intrepid man of his age 
" fly before women, children, and donkeys !"* 

Once having set oif, Conde determined to continue his jour- 
ney. He went to his house of St. Maur, which was only three 
leagues from Paris ; but taking his way by cross roads he arrived 
there very late, and worn out with fatigue. He was there joined 
by Madame la Princesse, the Prince of Conti, the Duchess de 
Longueville, the Dukes de la Rochefoucauld and Nemours, 
Messieurs Arnauld, Lenet, and many others. All the pleasures 
of this chateau — balls, comedies, play, hunting-parties, and good 
cheer — attracted thither a great number of those uncertain per- 
sons who always offer themselves at the commencement of a party, 
and who forsake or betray it in the sequel. t St. Maur became 
a kind of Court, in rivalry with that of the Palais Royal. Anne 
of Austria, however, troubled at the consequences of such a seces- 
sion, caused it to be declared to the Parliament, on her Royal 
word, that she had never entertained any intention of arresting 
Monsieur le Prince. Thereupon the Parliament entreated the 
Duke of Orleans to go to St. Maur, and employ all his influence 
with his cousin to persuade him to return. On her side the 
Queen sent the Marechal de Grammont for the same object. 

Conde received these overtures with cold disdain, and replied 
that he should persist in absenting himself so long as her Majesty 
kept in attendance upon her the Secretaries of State, Servien and 
Lyonne, who were creatures of Mazarin, and in daily correspond- 
ence with him. Anne of Austria exclaimed with fury against 
this new inroad on her rights. The wisest magistrates did not 
approve of it, and the Coadjutor remarked that, " if the aversion 
" of one of Messieurs the Princes of the Blood was to be the rule 
" of a Minister's fortune, that dependence would greatly diminish 
" the King's authority, and the liberty of his subjects. " 

There were several stormy debates upon the subject. At last 

* St. Aulaire, History of the Fronde, vol. ii., p. 363. 
f Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld, p. 193. 



1651.] RENEWAL OF THE CIVIL WAR. 193 

a decree was passed, which, without naming any one, condemned 
all those who, in defiance of preceding decrees, should correspond 
with the Cardinal. Servien and Lyonne no longer ventured to 
appear at the Council, or even to remain in the town ; and Conde 
having no longer any pretext for continuing in his retreat, con- 
sented to return to Paris, and to pay the Queen a short visit. 

Conde, however, foresaw very clearly that things could not 
remain in this state ; that he must either attempt a thorough 
reconciliation with the Court or throw himself into extreme mea- 
sures. He felt a sincere veneration for the Royal authority, and 
an honourable scruple against recommencing civil war. Tumults 
in the street especially inspired him with deep disgust. He said 
himself, with that noble simplicity which so well becomes a hero, 
that he did not feel himself brave enough for a war carried on with 
stones and firebrands.* On the other hand he saw his mortal 
enemy dictating, from Cologne, even the smallest steps taken 
by the Queen. He feared that, by limiting himself to a timid 
defence, he should leave to Mazarin time to corrupt his servants, 
and still further to throw division into his party. Grieved and 
perplexed by a thousand conflicting sentiments, he continued his 
preparations for a war, without, however, renouncing his hopes 
of a peace. He sent his wife, his son, and his sister to Montrond, 
in order to maintain Berry in his interests, and await in safety the 
result of the crisis. He sent the Marquis de Sillery to Brussels 
to concert measures on the side of the Spaniards. His best towns 
were intrusted to his best friends : he gave the command of 
Bellegarde to the Count de Boutteville, of Dijon to Arnauld, and 
of Stenay to Marsin ; whilst with himself at the Hotel de Conde he 
retained the faithful Lenet as his confidential counsellor, and sur- 
rounded himself with a numerous and brilliant escort of nobility. 

The Queen on her side was readily led into violent resolu- 
tions, hoping to find in a civil war some occasion for the recall 
of her favourite. She sent to the Parliament a formal Declara- 
tion against the Prince of Conde, reproaching him with great 
bitterness for all the steps he had taken, and even for all the 
favours he had received. The following day Conde went to the 
Great Chamber to justify himself; he caused another Declaration 
to be read in his vindication, which he had forced Gaston to 
* Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld, p. 178. 



194 LIFE OF COND& [chap. viii. 

sign, and he next accused the Coadjutor to his face of being 
the author of the calumnies against his reputation and of the at- 
tacks against his person. Gondy boldly answered, fixing his eyes 
full upon Condtf, that at any rate nobody could accuse him of 
having failed in keeping his word to his friends. This latter sally, 
which related to the broken engagements with the Fronde and 
Madame de Chevreuse, stung the Prince to the quick. " How- 
" ever," says Gondy himself, st though animated by Monsieur le 
" Prince de Conti, who touched him on the side as though to urge 
" him to resent it, he did not lose his temper, which in him could 
w only be the effect of the greatness of his courage and his mag- 
" nanimity. Though I was on that day very well attended, he 
" was without comparison much stronger than I was ; and it is 
" certain that if we had drawn our swords at that moment, he 
" would have had the whole advantage over me.''* 

These dangers, these scandals, occurred more than once. One 
day the Coadjutor, being better attended than usual, wished to 
dispute the precedence with Monsieur le Prince in the Salle du 
Palais : the Prince disdained such an adversary and such a field 
of battle ; but the servants and friends of both parties were 
already grasping their swords. It became necessary that the 
First President Mole* should pathetically entreat Monsieur le 
Prince, by the blood of St. Louis, not to allow the temple, 
which that glorious King had given to the preservation of peace 
and the protection of justice, to become the scene of bloodshed: 
it became necessary that he should exhort the Coadjutor, by his 
sacred character, not to encourage the massacre of a people whom 
God had committed to his charge. But at this very same sitting 
the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, finding himself near Gondy as he 
was entering the Parquet des Huissiers, pressed him with great 
violence between the folding-doors, and it is acknowledged by 
himself in his Memoirs, that he hesitated as to whether he should 
not, upon that occasion, despatch his mortal enemy : he let him 
pass, however, at last, all breathless and bruised. They saw 
each other once more before the civil war, on an occasion which 
forms a singular and shocking contrast to this. Conde was re- 
turning from the Parliament in his coach with La Rochefoucauld, 
when they met the procession of " Notre Dame " — the Coadju- 
* Memoirs of Retz, vol. ii., p. 455. 



1651.1 LIT DE JUSTICE. 195 

tor attired in his episcopal robes, followed by his clergy, and 
walking behind several images and relics. To show their respect 
to the Church, the Prince and the Duke immediately stepped 
out of their carriage and received on their knees the blessing 
of the Prelate, who afterwards made a low bow to his Highness, 
his cap in his hand. On that day the populace was entirely 
on the Prince's side ; they loaded the Coadjutor with invectives 
and reproaches, and would have torn him in pieces if Conde had 
not sent some servants to his rescue. 

According to the Memoirs of the times, " the Queen, who 
" hated equally both parties, would have been heartily glad if they 
" had killed each other, so that neither should escape !"* But 
in this conjuncture of affairs she was obliged to support the 
Coadjutor whilst waiting for an opportunity to ruin him in his turn. 
She had sent word to the Parliament that the King, her son, 
would hold a " Lit de Justice " there on the 7th of September, in 
order to declare his majority. Of course such a declaration 
from the mouth of a child of thirteen years of age could not 
in any way affect the Government or diminish the Queen's 
authority : on the contrary, she intended to increase it under her 
son's name, and to find a tolerable pretext for eluding her promise 
of convoking the States-General. Conde did not choose to be 
present at the ceremony, thinking that he might, perhaps, be 
arrested ; he retired to Chantilly, and from thence to the Chateau 
de Trie,f the house of his brother-in-law De Longueville, but 
he sent his brother, the Prince of Conti, to carry a letter of 
apology to her Majesty. The expressions of this letter were, 
however, so unhappily chosen, that the Queen was exasperated 
by them beyond measure : she said that night to the Coadjutor 
these very words : " Monsieur le Prince shall perish or I 
« will V'% 

Monsieur le Prince still hesitated, however, in giving the signal 
for a civil war. He felt, almost in spite of himself, the strongest 
repugnance in acting against the Sovereign Majesty. He found 

* Memoirs of Montglat, vol. ii., p. 205. 

f Trie is eight leagues distant from Beauvais, on the road to Gisors. 
This Chateau served as an asylum to Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1767 (see 
his Letters to M. du Peyrou). Now, one tower alone remains. (Guide 
Pitt oresque, vol. ii., Dept. de l'Oise, p. 24.) 

I Memoirs of Retz, vol. ii., p. 492. 



196 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. viii. 

the Duke de Longueville very fully determined against running 
any further risks for the sake of pleasing a haughty brother-in- 
law and a faithless wife. Besides, a more tender motive recalled 
Conde to Paris. He had fallen once more passionately in love 
with Madame de Chatillon, who, attached at that time to the Duke 
de Nemours, gave the Prince only just encouragement enough 
to prevent his being entirely repulsed ; but Conde hoped by time 
and assiduity to triumph over his rival. These political and 
private reasons induced him to take one more step towards a 
reconciliation. He wrote to the Duke of Orleans that he was 
going to begin the civil war in Berry ; but that he adopted this 
measure with very great regret ; that he was perfectly ready to 
accept any reasonable terms ; that he placed his own interests 
in the hands of his dear cousin ; that he was proceeding by short 
days' journeys ; and that he would stop at Angerville, in order 
there to receive Gaston's answer. 

Gaston, who did indeed become panic-struck at the smallest 
hint of a war, negotiated with great ardour, and obtained several 
concessions from the Queen : she promised that the States-Gene- 
ral should be immediately convoked to regulate public affairs, and 
that in the mean time the Prince could remain without molesta- 
tion in any one of his Governments which he preferred. These 
conditions might have preserved peace : it was a strange accident 
which turned the scale to war. Conde awaited his cousin's an- 
swer at Angerville, a country house of the President Perrault ; 
the very same where a year previously the Princess had also rested 
in her flight from Chantilly. But the Sieur de Croissy, who was 
intrusted with the letter by the Duke of Orleans, mistook the ad- 
dress and went to Augerville, a little town near Etampes. Conde 
therefore seeing no one arrive, and being much irritated with the 
very little notice which appeared to be taken of his offers, rapidly 
continued his route to Bourges. He was still on his journey 
when Croissy, becoming aware of his mistake, contrived to over- 
take him. Conde received his despatches on horseback, and read 
them without dismounting ; then turning round, and addressing 
those who surrounded him, he said, " If this letter had come a 
" little sooner, it would have stopped me ; but being now in 
" my saddle, I will not dismount for uncertain hopes."* 
* Memoirs of Guy Joli. 



1651.] HIS COUNCILS AT MONTROND. 197 

Such levity in so important an affair can only be excused by 
the heat of a first impulse. Indeed that impulse once over, the 
Prince saw that he ought to take time to reflect, and opportuni- 
ties to consult. He only staid at Bourges therefore a few hours 
to receive the Magistrates, and took Croissy with him on to Mon- 
trond, at which place were assembled the chiefs of his family 
and party, his wife, his sister, his brother, the Dukes de la 
Rochefoucauld and de Nemours, the President Viole, and 
Lenet. 

Thus the lonely Chateau of Montrond became once again, as it 
had been the previous year, the centre of projects and councils 
where the question of peace or war for the whole of France was to 
be decided. The same persons as formerly were to be found there, 
the Princess of Conde, the young Enghien, and the faithful Lenet ; 
but Conde, who was then the object of all their negotiations, had 
now become their leader. The deliberations were several times 
renewed, and Conde for a long time hesitated. Clemence, so 
courageous for the deliverance of her husband, now that he was 
restored to her, placed all her glory in an absolute submission to 
his will :* her own wishes, however, all tended to repose. Ma- 
dame de Longueville, proud and vindictive, thought only of 
war ; and drew along with her not only the Prince of Conti, but 
La Rochefoucauld, Nemours, and Yiole. Observing Conde's 
state of uncertainty, these latter signed amongst themselves a 
secret agreement to continue the war without him, and even 
against him if necessary, rather than endure a reconciliation 
with the Court. Conde knew them far better than they knew 
themselves. When on the very point of yielding to their entrea- 
ties, he exclaimed, " You have engaged me in a strange plot, 
" but I foretell that you will be sooner weary of it than I shall, 
" and that you will forsake me !"j* Never, as we shall see, was 
any prophecy more fully accomplished. 

Thus it is that in factions small minds can subdue great ones — 
thus it was that Conde became forced to yield to the influence of 
those whose judgment he despised. When once his resolution was 
taken, he acted with vigour. He sent back Croissy to the Duke 
of Orleans with a decisive and final refusal of his offers. He 

* " Nobis obsequii gloria relicta est." — (Tacit. Annal., lib. vi., c. 8.) 
f Memoirs of the Duchess de Nemours, part iii. 



198 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. viii. 

despatched Lenet to Madrid to try and obtain assistance from 
Spain. He ordered the Princess of Conde to shut herself up at 
Montrond with her son, whilst the Duchess de Longueville and 
the Prince of Conti were to return to Bourges and maintain 
that town in a state of revolt. Conde himself left Montrond the 
next day for his new government of Guyenne, accompanied only 
by La Rochefoucauld. On his road he stopped to visit the 
field of battle at Jarnac, where his grandfather had fallen, and 
he made his public entry into Bordeaux on the 22nd of Sep- 
tember. The Bordelais received him with an enthusiasm which 
is not uncommon with the Gascons : they were transported 
with joy at seeing for the first time amongst them the conqueror 
of Rocroy, the prisoner of Vincennes, the constant protector of 
their town ; and what pleased them more than all, the declared 
enemy of the Duke d'Epernon.* 

On the other hand the Prince of Cdhti arrived at Bourges, 
and according to his brother's example, wished to display some 
vigour; but in weak characters vigour invariably turns to 
violence. Meeting in the street the Lieutenant-General of the 
Presidial) he seized him roughly by the collar and dragged 
him towards the citadel called " La Grosse Tour" exclaiming 
that he was a Mazarin ; and the populace, add the Memoirs 
of the times, " ever ready to turn to every quarter, without 
" knowing why, followed the prisoner, pelting him with mud 
" and insulting him with taunts."f 

The greater number, however, of the respectable townspeople, 
not seeing any motive for this new civil war, did not at all wish 
to take part in it. The Queen, who was then at Fontaine- 
bleau with the young King, was informed of their favourable 
disposition, and resolved to profit by it. She advanced towards 
Berry by Montargis and Gien, accompanied by her son, and 
escorted by four thousand soldiers. At the news of her ap- 
proach the populace of Bourges flew to arms to the cry of " Long 
" live the King !" and took possession of the gates of the town, 
after having driven forth the Prince of Conti and Madame de 
Longueville, who took shelter at Montrond. The next day 
Louis XIV. made his entry into the town. As a reward for the 

* Memoirs of La Kochefoucauld. 
f Memoirs of Montglat, vol. iii., p. 224. 



1651. J HIS CONDUCT AT BORDEAUX. 199 

zeal which had been displayed in his reception, he gave per- 
mission that the Grosse Tour should be demolished, and he with 
his own hand pulled down the first stone. Then all the inhabitants 
fell to work with the most inconceivable eagerness, so that in a 
few days this monument of former tyranny was completely razed 
to the ground. All the rest of the province (with the excep- 
tion only of Montrond) submitted in like manner, without a 
blow, to the Royal authority ; and the Court, after having staid 
there a short time, proceeded to Poitiers in order to superintend 
more closely the war in Guyenne. A body of two thousand men, 
under the Count de Palluau, was however detached from the 
army to lay siege to Montrond ; but neither Conti nor Nemours, 
nor the two Princesses, the wife and sister of Conde, judged it 
advantageous to allow themselves to be surrounded and taken in 
this Chateau. They set off therefore to rejoin Conde, leaving 
the Marquis de Persan with a good number of soldiers for the 
defence of this place. 

On arriving at Bordeaux they found Monsieur le Prince 
supported by several noblemen who last year, during his im- 
prisonment, had hesitated to take part in his cause. The Count 
du Dognon, the Prince de Tarente, and the Marechal de la 
Force declared themselves for him. But their support, however 
valuable it might be, could not repair his loss in the Duke de 
Bouillon and the Viscount de Turenne, who, so far from joining 
Conde, had made a private agreement with the Court. On the 
other hand, the first enthusiasm of the Bordelais for the Prince 
had soon cooled : they were astonished at his harshness and his 
insulting sallies, which they could not but compare with the un- 
alterable gentleness and noble devotion of Clemence. From the 
very first day Conde had trampled down their ancient forms : he 
had on his own authority driven away from the town the First 
President and all the other Members of the Parliament whom he 
suspected ; he had, without any decree, seized the money in the 
Royal Offices. It was still worse when Lenet, according to the 
Prince's instructions, signed at Madrid a treaty with the Spa- 
niards, by which they promised the assistance of money and a 
fleet, provided that Conde should give up to them some sea-port 
as a pledge. In consequence the Baron de Vatteville was soon 
seen to enter the Gironde with eight Spanish men-of-war and 



200 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. viii. 

several fire-ships. The enemy's flag was seen waving before the 
port of Bordeaux ; and Conde, according to his engagement, gave 
up to them the town of Bourg. He received in requital a small 
portion of the subsidies which Spain always promised, and some- 
times paid. But at this news, the national feeling, so all-powerful 
with Frenchmen, was roused at Bordeaux ; thirty Presidents or 
Councillors of the Parliament left the town in indignation ; and 
many of those who still obeyed Conde, obeyed him with chafing 
and rage. 

In this situation, in spite of the extraordinary activity dis- 
played by the Prince, and in spite of all his military genius, he 
could only assemble some thousands of raw recruits, without am- 
munition, without experience, and without discipline. On the 
other hand, troops rendered warlike by his own direction were 
ready to march against him, led from Flanders by the Count 
d'Harcourt, that former " Recors de Jules Mazarin^ as Cond4 
had called him on his road from Marcoussy. The Prince seeing, 
however, how important it was for him to gain as soon as pos- 
sible reputation to his arms, hastened to commence the campaign, 
and sent La Rochefoucauld and Tarente to lay siege to Cognac, a 
fortified town, which commanded the passage of the Charente. 
Harcourt advanced to repulse them at the head of the Royal 
army, and at this news Conde hastened from Bordeaux with the 
Duke de Nemours and four thousand cavalry. He marched 
upon the left bank, whilst La Rochefoucauld was encamped 
upon the right, and the two corps could communicate by a bridge 
of boats. But this bridge was suddenly carried off by the con- 
tinual rains which swelled the waters of the Charente, so that the 
Royal troops fell upon La Rochefoucauld without Conde being 
able to go to his assistance, and obliged him to raise the siege 
within sight of the conqueror of Rocroy. Mortified at this check, 
Conde turned his thoughts towards La Rochelle, of which he hoped 
to get possession, through the means of the Count du Dognon, 
who had at his disposal one of the towers in the port, called the 
St. Nicholas. But Harcourt forestalled him by a forced march, 
and arrived first before the tower, when he so completely intimi- 
dated the garrison, that they offered to capitulate. Harcourt 
called out to them that he gave no quarter to rebels ; and that 
if they wished to obtain their pardon, they must throw their Go- 



1651.] SIEGE OF MONTROND. 201 

vernor from the top of the tower ! Accordingly, the alarmed 
soldiers seized their unfortunate officer, and hurled him to the 
bottom, where he was despatched by sabre-cuts — after which, 
they themselves took service with the King's army.* 

Conde arrived only just in time to witness this second reverse. 
He retired first to Tonnay Charente, and from thence towards 
the Garonne, always followed by Harcourt, and harassed by con- 
tinual skirmishes. On the one side were good troops and an indif- 
ferent general ; on the other, the first Captain of the age at the 
head of a newly levied army. 

Towards the end of the year, however, Conde obtained some 
troops of the line by means of the Count de Marsin, who com- 
manded for the King in Catalonia, and who brought over a part 
of his army to Monsieur le Prince. It was this defection of 
Marsin which lost Catalonia to the French — a province which 
they had possessed for the last twelve years through the revolt 
of its inhabitants, but which now fell back to its former masters 
at Madrid. Nearly at the same time the Count d' Harcourt re- 
ceived fresh assistance from Flanders ; thus therefore the rela- 
tive weakness of Monsieur le Prince in Guyenne remained always 
the same. 

In the other provinces also Fortune did not smile on Conde's 
arms. Normandy remained faithful to the Duke de Longueville, 
and the Duke de Longueville to the King. In Berry, Mont- 
rond, the only fortress which still remained to Conde, was closely 
blockaded by the Count de Palluau. In Burgundy, Arnauld, one of 
the Prince's best friends, commanded for him at Dijon, but on his 
death occurring, the citadel opened its gates to the Duke d'Eper- 
non ; and nearly all the province without striking a blow submitted 
to its new Governor. In the north the Count de Tavannes had 
succeeded in detaching the Prince's regiments from the Royal 
army, and leading them under cover of the cannon of Stenay ; 
from thence he had joined the Spanish General, Don Estevan de 
Gamarra. Both these united were advancing towards Vitry, when 
the Marechal de la Ferte intercepted their passage, and threw 
them back with loss upon the frontier. At Paris the Parlia- 
ment had no sooner heard of the treaty with Spain than they 
consented to register the King's Letter Patent, which declared 
* Memoirs of Montglat, vol. iii. p. 229. 



202 LIFE OF CONDK. [chap. viii. 

the Princes of Conde and of Conti, and their partisans, guilty of 
high treason. 

Thus on all sides the Prince's party seemed to be declining. 
His partisans already began to say, as is usual in reverses of for- 
tune, " We never really loved that man ! " In a few more 
months the Prince's bad fortune would either have obliged him 
to fly his country or bowed him to submission. But at this very 
time a new event occurred, which irritated the fury of the people, 
re-animated Conde's hopes, and appeared to give new strength to 
his party. Cardinal Mazarin was returning to France ! 

Never, even in the most pressing dangers, had the Queen really 
forsaken her Minister. All her promises of never seeing him again, 
of never thinking of his recall, passed for nothing in her mind : 
all her wishes, all her thoughts, were for Mazarin ; in short, Anne 
of Austria, so full of levity in her younger days, proved herself 
most firm in her affections at fifty. Such ladies as have been 
very fickle when their attachments are unopposed, are often ob- 
served to become of an immoveable constancy as soon as they 
encounter universal resistance. Sometimes years alone are suf- 
ficient to produce this happy change ; like weathercocks, they 
fix of course when once they become rusty ! 

It may well be imagined that the Cardinal on his side 
eagerly longed to seize once more the reins of government ; and 
this conjuncture seemed auspicious for his return. Conde's party 
appeared to be on the eve of its downfall ; and the Parliament of 
Paris, as well as the Duke of Orleans, seemed to have broken off 
all measures with him. What a good opportunity for the Queen 
to fail in all her promises ! It is true that some further delay 
would have increased the chances of success ; but neither love 
nor ambition can brook delay. A rumour was soon spread that 
Mazarin was levying troops at his own expense in the Bishoprick 
of Liege ; and he announced in some letters which were made 
public, that " knowing the state of affairs in France, and wishing 
" to discharge his great debt of obligation to the King and to the 
" Queen, he was preparing to conduct an army to the assistance 
" of their Majesties." A few days later it was known that he 
had accordingly entered France by Sedan ; that the Marechal 
d'Hocquincourt had rejoined him with two thousand men of the 
Royal army; that reinforcements were arriving every hour; 



1652.] MAZAKIN AND THE PARLIAMENT. 203 

that they wore scarfs of green (Mazarin's colour), and that they 
were all marching onwards together. 

At this news a just resentment burst forth in the Parliament ; 
they instantly resolved to send a deputation to the King, to declare 
Mazarin guilty of high treason, and to offer a price for his head. 
The whole capital appeared gloomy and indignant. From that 
moment the rebellion of the Princes was looked upon as justified ; 
as it was said that they had only taken arms in order to oppose this 
fatal return. From Guyenne Conde himself wrote to the Parlia- 
ment, explaining his motives, and offering his alliance.* But 
these high-minded magistrates resolved not to ally themselves with 
one who had allied himself with the enemies of France. They 
were Frenchmen, above all : they would not have either the co- 
lour Isabelle or the green — they loved only the Drapeau Blanc ; 
they wished to punish a corrupt Minister, but not to support a re- 
bellious Prince. Their motives were undoubtedly noble, great, 
and generous ; but they did not perhaps sufficiently comprehend 
the pressing necessity of affairs ; they did not see that they had not 
strength sufficient to form a third party, and that they must 
absolutely choose between the two — either submit to the re-esta- 
blishment of Mazarin, or support the arms of Conde. 

The Parliament had, however, despatched two of its Coun- 
cillors, Geniers and Bitaut, against the Cardinal. They were 
to raise the peasantry, cut off the provisions, signify the 
decree of the Company to the soldiers, and arrest, as far as pos- 
sible, Mazarin's progress. They discharged their mission with 
courage at least, if not with success. At Pont sur Yonne they 
stationed themselves in their lawyer's gowns, like Roman senators, 
across the bridge, obstinately resisting the passage, and trying to 
seduce the troops, till at last it became necessary to charge them 
by a piquet of cavalry. Geniers was severely wounded and 
put to flight ; Bitaut had his gown pierced by four balls. He 
was brought before the Marechal d'Hocquincourt, who received 
him with great courtesy, and proposed to him to go and see the 
Cardinal. But the Councillor, without being intimidated by 
the novel sight of armed men, answered with a noble pride, 
grounded on a respect for the laws, that the Cardinal had been 

* Letter of the Prince of Conde to the Parliament of Paris, Janu- 
ary 5, 1652. 



204 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. viit. 

condemned by a decree of the Parliament as guilty of high 
treason, and that he would see him only in the prisoner's dock, 
and when he was undergoing his trial as a traitor !* 

Without troubling himself much about these black-robed an- 
tagonists, Mazarin pursued his journey, and saw his army increase 
as he advanced. He crossed the Loire at Gien, and the Cher at 
St. Aignan, and at last joined the Court at Poitiers on the 30th of 
January.*!* He was received as it were in triumph ; the King himself 
went forth a league to meet him, and the Queen remained two 
hours at her window waiting for him, her eyes fixed upon the road 
he was to take. That same night he resumed his place at the 
Council, disposing as formerly of all affairs exactly as he pleased. 
He dismissed Monsieur de Chateauneuf, who had withstood some 
of his wishes ; he divided the command of the army between 
D'Hocquincourt and Turenne ; and he led the Court back again to 
Saumur, from whence he could direct with ease the siege of 
Angers, which had just revolted, and watch more closely the 
affairs of Paris. 

The affairs of Paris did indeed require all his attention. It 
was not only the Parliament which sent forth Decrees and 
despatched Councillors — it was the furious populace ; it was the 
Duke of Orleans, incensed to the last degree by the Cardinal's 
return, who had formed a new alliance with the Prince of Conde, 
and recalled his regiments from the Royal troops or garrisons to 
form for himself an army surrounding the capital. The Prince's 
agents worked day and night to try and draw the Parliament 
entirely into their party ; but the greater part of their manoeuvres 
were frustrated by the influence of the Coadjutor. Conde, who was 
informed of it, did not despair of getting rid of this troublesome 
rival. He formed the very extraordinary project — though by no 
means impracticable in those troubled times — of carry ing off Gondy 
in the midst of Paris by several trusty soldiers ; to mount him on 
a pillion behind one of the horsemen ; and thus conduct him, by 
means of relays of men and horses, a prisoner to the frontiers of 
Lorraine. Gourville, always dexterous and nearly always fortu- 
nate, undertook the execution of this project, and he had arranged 

* Letter of Guy Patin, January SO, 1652. (Premier Recueil, vol. i., 
p. 115.) 

f Memoirs of Montglat, vol. iii., p. 239. 



1652.] , ALLIANCE WITH THE SPANIARDS. 205 

all his measures, when an unforeseen accident disconcerted his 
enterprise, and obliged him to make his escape.* By another 
favour of Fortune the Coadjutor received just at this time his 
nomination to the Roman Purple, and assumed, for the rest of 
his life, the title, now become historical, of Cardinal de Retz. 

In the mean time the Duke of Orleans had assembled his army, 
and confided the command of it to the Duke de Beaufort. The 
Duke de Nemours also arrived at Paris, having been sent by 
Conde from the south to bring back his old troops from Stenay. 
In the state of fermentation produced by Mazarin's return, he 
found no obstacle to the success of his mission ; and he not only 
took back to France with him Conde's old soldiers, but also seve- 
ral regiments furnished by Spain. But these Spanish troops in 
Picardy, like the Spanish frigates in the Gironde, if on the one 
hand they strengthened the Prince's party by their material 
force, on the other raised against him much moral resistance in 
the minds of the patriotic magistrates. " To allow Spanish 
u troops to enter France ! " cried the Advocate- General Talon 

before the assembled Parliament " The very thought 

" of such a thing is a crime of high treason, which could not 
" occur to the heart of any true Frenchman ! " . . . . Pro- 
longed cheers followed this speech. The Duke of Orleans was 
reduced, with the utmost effrontery, to deny that there was a 
single Spaniard in the troops of the Duke de Nemours, de- 
claring that they were only Lorrainers and Liegeois — " people 
" whose custom it is to hire themselves out for money, and who 
* would readily take the King's pay, if it were agreeable to his 
11 Majesty to engage them and employ them towards the ex- 
" pulsion of Cardinal Mazarin." But this subterfuge could not 
much longer be maintained. 

Nemours, on his arrival, however, joined his troops to those 
of Monsieur de Beaufort in the appanage of Gaston, between the 
Seine and the Loire ; together they formed a body of from ten to 
twelve thousand men. But neither Nemours nor Beaufort had 
the smallest talent for war : besides, they were divided by a former 
jealousy, and their projects were never in accordance. The 
orders which had been given by Monsieur le Prince to the Duke 
de Nemours were to pass the Loire to the assistance of Mont- 
* See the details in the Memoirs of Gourville, vol. i. 

P 



206 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. viii. 



rond, and then march towards Guyenne ; whilst the Duke de 
Beaufort had received exactly contrary directions from Gaston, 
who would not consent that his army should go any distance 
from Paris. Thus therefore, as is well remarked by La Roche- 
foucauld, they could not act together, and yet their forces if 
separated were not sufficient to hold their ground against the 
King's army.* 

This army, commanded by the Marechals d'Hocquineourt and 
Turenne, having reduced the city of Angers, had advanced with 
the Court first to Tours, and then to Blois. The inhabitants 
everywhere opened their gates to the cry of " Long live the 
" King ! " Even Orleans seemed inclined to follow this example. 
Then Gaston, trembling lest he should lose the principal town of 
his appanage, and wishing to maintain the townspeople in what 
he called their duty, resolved to send thither his daughter, Made- 
moiselle de Montpensier ; the same who has left us such curious 
and candid Memoirs of her life. She was then twenty-five years 
of age, with somewhat r®ugh manners, of a quick and fiery tem- 
per, and inheriting an immense fortune from her mother, through 
the House of Montpensier. Her secret leaning was for the Prince 
of Conde, and she acknowledges in her Memoirs that she would 
have been very glad to marry him in case Madame la Princesse 
had died. On other occasions she hoped that her cousin -german, 
Louis XIV., might perhaps make her an offer of his hand. 
Sometimes, too, the lawful King of England, who afterwards 
reigned under the name of Charles II. , but who was then exiled 
from his country, and hardly had wherewithal to live, paid his 
court to her, though somewhat coldly, reckoning, no doubt, upon 
this advantageous marriage and on the fortune of his bride for 
the reconquest of his throne. Mademoiselle on her side was very 
fond of Kings, but not of Kings in exile. She liked lovers too, 
but not timid and bashful lovers. Here are some details given 
by herself: — " When the King of England had arrived at Pe- 
" ronne (in 1649), the Queen (Anne of Austria) said to me, 
" ' Here is your suitor coming.' I replied, ' I am longing that 
" he should say something tender to me, because I do not yet 
" know what it is : nobody has ever dared to say anything of the 
" kind to me.' The day of his arrival we rose betimes. My 
* Memoirs of La Kochefoucauld, p. 257. 



1652.] CHARLES II. OF ENGLAND. 207 

w hair was in curls, which is not often the case with me. I en- 
M tered the Queen's coach ; she exclaimed, ' Ah ! one can easily 
" tell the people who expect their lovers ! How much adorned 
" she is!' I was on the point of answering, fi Those ladies who 
" have had lovers already know of course how one should dress 
" for them, and the pains that should be taken ;' and I might 
" even have added, that as my lover came with views of lawful 
" matrimony, I had a perfectly good right to adjust my dress 
" for him. However, I did not venture to say any thing. We 
" went a whole league to meet him, and then got out of our car- 
" riage at his approach. When he was in the coach with us, 
" the King talked to him of dogs, of horses, of the Prince of 
" Orange, and of the hunting parties in those countries. He re- 
" plied in French. The Queen wished to ask him some tidings 
u of his affairs; but on these he would give no answer. As 
" he was questioned several times upon very serious matters, 
" and of great importance to him, he excused himself upon the 

u plea of not being able to speak our language As 

" soon as we had arrived, we sat down to dinner. He ate no 
" ortolans. He threw himself upon a piece of beef and a shoulder 
" of mutton, as though there had been nothing else at table. 
" After dinner the Queen walked away, and left me with him. 
" He remained a full quarter of an hour without uttering a word. 
" I am willing to believe that his silence resulted rather from 

" great respect than from want of love I went up closer 

" to him, and, to draw him into conversation, I asked him some 
" news of several people whom I had seen about his person, to 
" which he replied, without saying anything tender to my- 
*■ self."* 

When Charles returned to France, however, after his expe- 
dition to Scotland and his defeat at Worcester, Mademoiselle 
was more satisfied with his conduct. " I thought him much 
" better-looking than before his departure, though his hair was 
" cut short and he had a great deal of beard, which alters 
u people very much. I thought he spoke very good French ; 
" he told us that after having lost the battle, he passed through, 
" accompanied only by forty or fifty horsemen, the army of the 
" enemy and the town beyond which the conflict had taken 
* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. i., p 235. 

p 2 



20S LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. viii. 

" place : that after this he had sent them all away, and had been 
" left alone with one Lord : that he had remained for a long 
" while upon a tree, afterwards in the house of a peasant, where, to 

" disguise himself, he had cut his hair He came to con- 

" duct me to my apartment by that gallery which leads from the 
" Louvre to the Tuileries ; and as we went along, he spoke to 
" me only of the miserable life which he had led in Scotland ; that 
" there was not a woman to talk with ; that people there were 
" so churlish that they thought it sinful to hear a violin ; that 
" he had been terribly wearied there; that he had felt the loss 
" of the battle the less, from his desire of returning to France, 
" where he found so many charms in persons for whom he had 
" the greatest friendship. He asked me if they would not soon 
" begin to dance ; he seemed to me, from all he said, to be a 

" bashful and awe-struck lover.* The Duchess d' Aiguil- 

" Ion, niece of the late Cardinal Richelieu, and a great devotee, 
" pressed me terribly to promise to marry him if he became a 
u Roman Catholic : saying that I ought to consider myself re- 
" sponsible before God for the salvation of his soul, and that it 

" was my duty to do so But Goulas pointed out to me 

" how miserable would be my situation if I married the King of 
" England ; and that when he had sold all my estates, and yet 
" not succeeded in reconquering his kingdom, I might die of 
" hunger !"f 

Let us now return to the journey to Orleans, where Mademoi- 
selle displayed great courage and zeal in executing her father's 
instructions. She left Paris accompanied only by a few officers 
of her household and two of her female friends, Mesdames de 
Fiesque and de Frontenac. Near Etampes she met the army 
of Messieurs de Beaufort and de Nemours, who received her 
with all due honours. They held a council of war in her 
presence, and it was resolved that, according to the orders of 
Monsieur, the troops should not march to succour Montrond, 
still less go to Guyenne, but that they should take up their 
position at Jargeau, a little town, with a bridge over the 
Loire, between Orleans and Gien. The next day Mademoi- 
selle received a gentleman, sent by the magistrates of Orleans to 
give her to understand that they would not receive her in their 
* Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 21. f lb., p. 32. 



1652.] A NEW MAID OF ORLEANS. 209 

town. Mademoiselle, however, continued her journey, with an 
escort of cavalry. This is not the first time in history that a young 
damsel appears as a warrior before Orleans ! But let us here bor- 
row her own words : — " I arrived about eleven o'clock in the 
u morning at the Porte Banniere, which was closed and barrica- 
" doed. Even after they had been informed that it was I, they 
" did not open it. I was there for three hours, and being weary of 
" remaining in the coach, I went up into a room of an inn close 
" to the gate, and amused myself by opening the letters brought 
" by the courier from Bordeaux, but I did not find any that were 
" diverting. After this I went to take a walk. This walk was 
H contrary to the advice of all the gentlemen who were with me, 
" and whom I called my ministers. The wish I had to set out 
" made me consult nothing but my own inclination. The ramparts 
" were covered with people, who exclaimed unceasingly * Long 
" live the King, the Princes, and down with Mazarin !' I could 
" not refrain calling out to them * Go to the Hotel de Ville and 

" make them open the gate to me.' I called to a Cap- 

" tain to open the gate : he made me a sign that he had no key. 
" I said to him, ' You must break it open, for you owe me 
" greater obedience than to the gentlemen of the town, as I am 
" the daughter of their master.' I grew so angry that I threat 

" ened him ; to which he only replied by low bows 

" Continuing my walk, however, I at last came to the edge of 
" the water, where all the boatmen, of whom there are great 

" numbers at Orleans, came to offer me their services 

" They told me that it would be very easy to break open a 
" postern which was on the quay, and that if I wished it they 
" would go and work at it. I told them to make haste. I gave 
" them money ; and, to animate them by my presence, I ascended 
" a great mound of earth which overlooked this gate. I thought 
u very little of taking the best road to it — I climbed like a cat : I 
" clung to the briers and bushes, and I jumped over all the 

" hedges without hurting myself. I had left the troops 

" which escorted me a quarter of a league from the town for 

" fear of alarming it A ladder was placed, by which I 

" ascended : it was rather a high one : I did not remark the 

" number of steps That illustrious gate, and which will 

" become so renowned by my entry, is called ' La Porte Brule'e.' 



210 LIFEOFCONDE. [chap, v hi. 

" When I saw it broken open, and that two planks had been re- 
M moved from the centre, Grammont made me a sign to advance. 
" A footman took me and carried me, pushing me through this 
" hole, into which I had scarcely passed my head ere the drums be- 
" gan to beat. The cries of ' Long live the King, the Princes, and 
" down with Mazarin !' redoubled. Two men took me and placed 
u me in a wooden chair. Every one kissed my hands, and I was 
" quite exhausted with laughter at seeing myself in such a 
" droll situation. After having traversed several streets, thus 
" carried in triumph, I told them that I knew how to walk, and 
u that I begged them to put me on the ground ; which they did. 
" I waited for my ladies, who arrived a moment later, bespattered 
" with mud like myself, but as pleased as I was."* 

Having penetrated into the streets of Orleans in this manner, 
half heroic, half ridiculous, the Princess went to harangue the 
magistrates and the populace from the Hotel de Ville, and knew 
how to profit by that instinct of obedience which is almost always 
inspired amongst us by the presence of the great. The magi- 
strates promised to act in all things according to her wish, and 
not admit into the town either the King or the Royal troops. 
On her side she allowed them to refuse admittance to Messieurs 
de Nemours and de Beaufort, of whom they had the greatest 
jealousy. 

The Queen thus losing all hope of being received at Orleans, 
passed on one side of the town through cross-roads, and re- 
ascended the Loire as far as Gien, with her son and her army ; 
she had in all only from eight to nine thousand men. But Tu- 
renne, knowing the inexperience of Nemours and Beaufort, boldly 
anticipated them with his advanced guard, at Jargeau, and took 
up his position on the bridge. He remained firm all day to re- 
ceive his reinforcements, and then advancing put to flight four 

battalions of the enemy, and drove them from the town ; after 

• 

* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. ii., p. 64 — 70, ed. 1745. In everything 
which personally concerns herself, the worthy lady is exceedingly prolix in 
her narratives. I have very greatly abridged this one, but always preserving 
her own words. She adds, p. 144, — " When the Queen Dowager of England 
" heard that I had entered Orleans, she said that she was not surprised at my 
" saving that city from my enemies, as the Maid of Orleans did before me ; 
" and that I had begun, like the Maid, to expel the English— meaning, that 
* I had refused her son I" 



i 



1652.] A DUEL PREVENTED. 211 

which the bridge (that they had firmly reckoned on) was 
broken by his orders. This first success excited great enthu- 
siasm at the Court for Turenne ; the same evening the Queen 
said to him in a transport of gratitude, that he had saved the 
State. But this great man enhanced still more the splendour of 
his merit by a moderation and modesty which did not even forsake 
him at Court. Writing to his sister on that very night (it was 
the 30th of March), here is all that he added as a postscript upon 
his last exploit : " Something has taken place at Jargeau which 
" is not of any great importance ! "* 

This check at Jargeau renewed the perplexities of the Dukes 
de Nemours and de Beaufort on the plan of their campaign. 
They approached Orleans to hold another council of war in 
presence of Mademoiselle, and as they were not to enter the 
town, she went to meet them at a little hostelry in the suburbs. 
But her presence did not suffice to prevent a violent quarrel 
between the two Generals. According to her account — " The 
" Duke de Nemours was in such a rage that he did not know 
i: what he said. He began swearing, and declaring that Mon- 
" sieur le Prince was deceived, and he knew who it was de- 
" ceived him. M. de Beaufort asked him, ' Who is it?' He 
" answered, ' It is you ! ' On which they struck each other- 

" They grasped their swords, and people threw them- 

" selves betwixt to separate them. It was a horrible confusion. 

" I led M. de Beaufort into a garden : he threw him- 

" self on his knees before me, and prayed my forgiveness with 
" all the grief possible for having been wanting in respect to- 
" wards me. Monsieur de Nemours did not do the same : he was 

" for a whole hour in such a fury as nothing could equal 

ci At last I brought them together. Monsieur de Beaufort ex- 
•" pressed the greatest tenderness towards Monsieur de Nemours, 
" and much grief at having lost his temper with his brother-in- 
;; law. The other said nothing, and embraced him as distantly 
" as he would have done a valet. Monsieur de Beaufort's tender- 
" ness went so far as to shed tears, at which all the company 
" laughed a little, and I the first of all, which I ought not to 
" have done, but I could not help it." f It was clear, however, 

* Ramsay's History of Turenne, vol. i., p. 289. 
t Memoirs of Mademoiselle, vol. ii-, p. 87 — 89. 



212 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. vin. 

after such a forced reconciliation, that one could no longer 
reckon upon any good understanding between these two Generals, 
nor upon any successes of their army. 

This ill news reached the Prince of Conde while his other 
affairs in Guyenne gave him great uneasiness, or rather, deep 
disgust. It was only by dint of abilities that he struggled 
against troops whom he had formerly himself disciplined and 
trained to victory. More than once, a more skilful general 
than Harcourt would have found many opportunities of over- 
throwing him. He was obliged to leave Bergerac, which he 
wished to defend, and to raise the siege of the little town of 
Miradoux, which he had invested with an army of lesser numbers 
than the garrison. In vain did he display everywhere his genius 
so full of resources, and his brilliant courage. At last he retired 
to Agen, where he found himself welcomed by a sedition and 
barricades, and it was only through his eloquence and that of La 
Rochefoucauld that he at last succeeded in re-obtaining admission 
into the town with his officers, whilst his troops were to remain 
in the suburbs or in the neighbouring villages. 

During this time discord was rife not only in his party, but 
also in his family at Bordeaux. In the journey from Montrond, 
the Duke de Nemours, forgetting Madame de Chatillon, had 
become passionately enamoured of Madame de Longueville. 
She on her side, who always thought least of the absent, no 
longer remembered the Duke de la Eochefoucauld in the pre- 
sence of a new lover. As may be supposed, on his arrival at 
Bordeaux, La Rochefoucauld did not take very patiently this 
triumph of his rival, and his jealousy still continued even after 
Nemours had again departed to bring back the troops from 
Flanders. 

There was a still more deplorable scandal when the Prince of 
Conti openly quarrelled with his sister, " on pretexts" (to use the 
words of La Rochefoucauld) " which, for the sake of all decorum 
" and family honour he ought to have concealed." In the times 
of which we are now speaking, such private scandals became affairs 
of State, and history must unwillingly follow in the mire. To 
fortify herself even against her brothers, and form a party for 
herself alone, Madame de Longueville tried to make use of the 
lowest of the populace of Bordeaux — of a troop of leaders who 



1652.] THE PRINCESS AT BORDEAUX. 213 

assembled every night under some great elm trees (des ormes), 
near the Cnateau de Ha, and who were called after those elms, 
" Les Ormistes" They were mere desperadoes, who spoke 
of nothing but fire and blood, and who sought only booty 
and pillage. Yet it was with these that the sister of the great 
Conde did not blush to unite herself against the authority of 
the magistrates and the right-minded inhabitants of the town. 
Conde heard of all these divisions with much grief and vexation. 
On returning from Cognac, and passing by Libourne, he had 
there sent word to Madame de Longueville and Madame la 
Princesse to come and meet him. He had remained one day with 
them, and had given all the directions which he could think of 
to stop the progress of these discords.* Clemence, ever ani- 
mated by a sense of duty in the midst of a family which gave 
her such despicable examples, and which yet despised her on 
account of her birth, maintained the most irreproachable con- 
duct : seeking the support of the magistrates, and repressing as 
much as possible the fury and violence of Les Ormistes, whilst she 
gained for herself a true and honourable popularity, and turned 
all hearts towards the service of her husband. But her state of 
health prevented her from long struggling against Madame de 
Longueville : she had found herself to be with child since her 
arrival at Bordeaux ; and her health, always feeble, still suf- 
fered from the fatigues and anxieties of the preceding year ; 
thus the field remained completely open to the intrigues of 
Madame de Longueville, and to the jealousies of the Prince of 
Conti. Thus, therefore, the party of the Prince of Conde in 
Guyenne was completely undermined by discord at the very mo- 
ment when it was announced to him that discord had also burst 
forth in the army of Nemours and Beaufort ; at the very moment 
when he was assured that his own arrival on the banks of the 
Loire could alone, perhaps, re-establish harmony, and restore 
victory to his arms. 

* Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld. 



214 LIFE OF CONDE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Secret departure of Conde from Gascony — He traverses the centre of France 
in disguise — Adventures on the journey — His sudden appearance at his 
army of the Loire — The action of Gien decided by his presence— Firmness 
of Turenne in retrieving the day — Conde proceeds to Paris — His treaty 
with Spain — His altercations with the Parliament — Siege of Etampes — 
Battle de la Porte St. Antoine at Paris — Conflagration and Massacre at the 
Hotel de Ville— Siege of Montrond — The place taken and demolished— 
Decline and fall of the Fronde — The Prince joins the Spaniards in 
Flanders. 

After the skirmish on the bridge of Jargeau, and the council 
at the gates of Orleans, the army of Nemours and Beaufort, with- 
out any fixed plan, had directed its march towards Montargis. 
On the other hand, Turenne and Hocquincourt had divided their 
forces, partly in order to find forage more abundantly at this 
season, and partly because Hocquincourt insisted upon keeping 
the command of one corps d'armee to himself alone. Accord- 
ingly Turenne established himself at Briare, and around Gien, 
where the Court was then residing, whilst Hocquincourt fixed 
his head quarters at Bleneau, a little town about three leagues 
in front of Briare, keeping with him however only his infantry, 
and distributing his cavalry in seven neighbouring villages. 
One day, when Turenne went to dine at Bleneau with Hocquin- 
court, and saw the disposition of his troops, he could not help 
telling him that he thought them very much exposed, and that 
he advised him to draw them nearer together. Hocquincourt, 
who was a general of very moderate talent, and consequently the 
more jealous of his authority, took no notice of this advice, and 
Turenne himself did not insist much upon it, not wishing to 
offend his colleague, and knowing besides that neither Nemours 
nor Beaufort were capable of making a skilful or bold attack.* 
That same night, however (it was the 7th of April), Turenne 

* MS. Memoirs of Fremont d'Ablancourt, cited bv Ramsay. 



1652.] HIS SUDDEN APPEARANCE AT GIEN. 215 

is awakened by the firing of musketry and cries of distress. He 
rises hastily ; he sees dismayed fugitives pouring in from all sides , 
he hears that Hocquincourt's troops have been assailed on se- 
veral points with the rapidity of lightning ; that of his seven 
quarters five have been already carried, and that all those found 
in them have been either taken prisoners or put to flight. Without 
losing a moment the Marechal assembles his infantry, despatches 
orders to his cavalry, and rushes to the assistance of his im- 
prudent colleague ; he marches without a guide in a dark night, 
but he sees from the distance two or three of Hocquincourt's 
quarters on fire, and ascending a little hillock, he contemplates, by 
the dusky light of the flames, the skilful disposition of the attack. 

For some time he remains absorbed in his reflections ; at last 
he exclaims to those who surround him, " The Prince of Conde 
" must be come !"* Thus. does one great genius discern another ; 
thus is the presence of a hero revealed already by his exploits ! 

It was truly indeed the great Conde, who, transported as though 
by enchantment from the further extremity of France, had 
brought back Victory, and was heralded by her.f He had 
formed this project at Agen, as soon as he heard of the fatal mis- 
understandings between Messieurs de Beaufort and de Nemours. 
He had allowed nothing to discourage him in his design, 
neither the hundred and twenty leagues of country which he 
would have to traverse, nor the deep and large rivers he would 
have to pass, nor the number of great towns he must avoid, nor 
the number of fortified castles which commanded his route, nor 
the chances of falling in somewhere with the King's troops, nor 
the still greater danger of being recognised and seized by the 
gentlemen of the opposite party and their vassals. Besides, he 
must either endanger his secret by taking a numerous suite, or 
his person by taking only a few devoted servants. Never had 
so perilous an expedition offered itself to the mind of the chief 
of a party — never either did prudence and skill more worthily 
second courage. Before his departure he had regulated as far 
as he could the affairs in Guyenne. He had sent the Prince 
of Conti to Agen ; but knowing his total incapacity, he had 
hardly confided anything to him besides the title of General, 

* Ramsay, History of Turenne, vol. i., p. 291. 
•f St. Aulaire, History of La Fronde, vol. iii., p. 101. 



216 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

leaving Count de Marsin to command the army, and the faithful 
Lenet to direct the council. All these measures had been taken 
with the most profound secrecy. He left Agen on the 24th 
of March, Palm Sunday, announcing a journey to Bordeaux 
for two or three days only. Many gentlemen accompanied 
him, but at some leagues from the town he devised several pre- 
texts for sending them back again, and kept with him only the 
Duke de la Rochefoucauld, and the Prince of Marsillac, his 
son, hardly fifteen years of age, but whom his father was deter- 
mined to associate in the honour of this enterprise ; the Marquis 
de Levis, the Count de Guitaut, and M. de Chavaignac ; then 
Bercenet, Captain of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld's guards ; 
lastly Gourville, and only one valet-de-chambre. Thus, there- 
fore, this little troop was composed of only nine persons. It 
was on the zeal and activity of Gourville that the Prince mainly 
relied for the guidance of this journey, and the means of 
their subsistence on the road. They marched with precaution, 
but with extraordinary speed, almost always without chang- 
ing horses and without resting at night. They never remained 
more than two hours in the same place, either for sleeping or 
eating. Conde himself was disguised as a courier, and was 
called Motteville. One day in a little inn he was rather embar- 
rassed by his disguise, for the host taking him for a servant told 
him to saddle and bridle a horse, but this he could never 
achieve.* "Another time," says Gourville, " we entered a 
" village where there was a public-house. Finding nothing but 
'* eggs there, Monsieur le Prince piqued himself upon making a 
" good omelet. The hostess having told him that he must turn it 
" round, in order to make it fry the better, and taught him 
" how it was to be done, on trying to execute these directions ho 
" threw it all into the fire. I begged the hostess to prepare 
" another, and trust it to some better cook."f On another occa- 
sion they lodged at the house of a gentleman from Perigord, who 
was so far from suspecting Conde's disguise, that during the 
whole repast he amused himself with jests at the expense of Ma- 
dame de Longueville. The subject afforded ample scope for sar- 
casms ; "and on this occasion," says La Rochefoucauld, "Mon- 

* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. ii., p. 97. 
f Memoirs of Gourville, vol. i., p. 86. 



1652.] ADVENTURES ON HIS JOURNEY. 217 

" sieur le Prince must have learnt some news of his nearest rela- 
" tions of which he had perhaps remained ignorant till then."* 

On the third morning before sunrise the Prince and his com- 
panions arrived on the banks of the Dordogne. At that post dif- 
ficulties were made in allowing people to pass the ferry if they 
were not known, particularly when there was a great number. 
Therefore, Gourville, leaving the others behind, went on alone, 
to find some means of getting them received. As he approached 
he heard the bells of some mules, and so managed his pace as 
to arrive at the same moment with them. The sound of the mules' 
bells had also attracted the boatman on the other bank, and he 
saw Gourville approach in the midst of all these mules without 
any suspicion ; but then Gourville, profiting by this opportunity, 
instantly sprang first into the boat, and by means of a silver 
whistle which he carried with him, gave the signal to the others 
to hasten to take their places. Some hours after, Gourville, 
walking with a guide whom he had engaged, and questioning 
him from time to time, perceived that he was approaching a 
large village on the banks of the river, and asked him if they 
must enter it. The guide answered, No ; but that they must 
pass quite close to the gate, which they would leave on their left, 
and that then the river ran so close to the walls that there was 
only the breadth of the road between them. He added, that 
for some days past a kind of guard was kept there. Gourville 
immediately put on a white scarf, which he had kept in reserve, 
and advanced alone. Finding a man outside the gate, he told 
him that he rather suspected some ill-looking fellows who were 
coming behind him, and he advised that none of them should be 
allowed to enter the town. This charitable advice was carefully 
obeyed. The gate was closed, and the people who were scat- 
tered upon the banks of the river hastened to return within the 
walls ; thus Conde's little troop passed quietly, and without 
being questioned, by the road to the right. " From thence," says 
Gourville, " we went to refresh our horses in a large village, 
" where a countryman said to Monsieur le Prince that he knew 
" him well, and accordingly did name him. Having overheard 
u him, I burst out laughing, and some other persons coming up, 

* Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld, p. 267 ; see also Montglat, vol. iii., p, 255. 



218 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

" I told them what had just happened. Jesting in this way, the 
" poor man became bewildered, and did not know what to 
" think/' In this very extraordinary march, both men and 
horses were ready to drop from exhaustion. The former could 
hardly stand whenever they dismounted, and more than once 
young Marsillac fainted away. Conde alone seemed superior to 
all fatigue, and animated the others by his gaiety 

At last, in the night of Holy Saturday, the gallant troop suc- 
ceeded in reaching the banks of the Loire, a little below what is 
called " Le Bee d'Allier" that is to say, the small tongue of land 
which lies between the two rivers, just before their junction. They 
had much difficulty in finding a boat ; they succeeded, however, 
at last, by the aid of the Marquis de Levis, who had a Chateau in 
this neighbourhood. Monsieur le Prince and his companions 
landed upon the other bank, close to the gate of La Charite, a town 
where there was a Royal garrison, commanded by Count de 
Bussy Rabutin, the same who has become famous by his letters 
and his libels. He had at first taken part on the Prince's side, 
but afterwards being disgusted by his haughtiness, he had be- 
come reconciled to Mazarin. The danger was great lest Conde 
and his friends shall be made prisoners of war. They would have 
been so but for the presence of mind of the hero of Rocroy. 
When several soldiers had appeared before the gate, and the 
sentinel had asked " Who goes there ?" Monsieur le Prince re- 
plied, " Tell Monsieur de Bussy that I beg he will have the 
" gates opened ; it is his friend Motteville who wishes to speak 
" with him." A soldier instantly went to execute this commis- 
sion. Soon after Gourville said aloud to the Prince, " You have 
" time to sleep here, if you please, but we and the others, whose 
" furlough ends to-morrow, must continue our journey :" and 
then he pretended to go, and several others to follow him ; and 
saying to the pretended Motteville, " Stay if you like," this latter 
began to walk away with them as though with great regret, com- 
plaining that they were strange people, but that he did not wish 
to separate himself from them, and begging that his compliments 
might be carried to the Governor. Deceived by this scene, the 
soldiers saw the little troop depart without any suspicion.* 

As soon as they were out of this peril the Prince desired Gour- 
* Memoirs of Gourville, vol. i., p. 94. 



1652.] HIS AKRIVAL AT CHATILLON. 219 

ville to set off at full speed, and announce his arrival at Paris. 
He himself, with his other companions, arrived on Easter day 
before the gates of Cosne. In vain did his friends advise him to 
avoid this town, where there were some King's troops. Conde 
replied, " It will be fine some day to boast of having traversed the 
" entire kingdom as quietly as the messenger from Lyons, at a 
" time when every body was in arms against me !"* He en- 
tered Cosne, therefore, with his companions, saying everywhere 
that they were officers, going to take their turn of service near 
his Majesty. This boldness, at six leagues distance only from 
the Royal army, was on the point of costing him very dear. On 
leaving Cosne he met two couriers who came from the Court, 
one of whom examined him closely for some time : Conde, think- 
ing himself discovered, soon after left the high road, and struck 
across the country. He left Bercenet in a ruined house near a 
bridge on the road by which the courier must pass to return to 
the Court, with orders to shoot him dead if he came. But 
the lucky star of this poor man, who had indeed recognised, not 
Conde, but Count de Guitaut, and who had afterwards stopped 
and questioned, with a pistol to his throat, the Prince's valet 
de chambre, made him take a by-road, and thus escape the death 
which awaited him. 

In consequence of this alarm, the Prince's suite had dispersed. 
He had also sent his valet de chambre on before to Chatillon-sur- 
Loing, to desire the keeper to leave the park gate open ; so that 
at last only La Rochefoucauld and his son remained with him. 
They w r andered for some time about the country : young Marsil- 
lac always a hundred paces before Monsieur le Prince, and the 
Duke at the same distance behind him, so that he might be 
warned by either of them of any danger, and might make use of 
that leisure to escape. Advancing in this manner they heard 
pistol shots from the side on which the valet de chambre had gone 
towards Chatillon, and at the same time they saw four horsemen 
to their left who were coming towards them at a rapid trot. 
Conde and his friends turned round to charge them, thinking 
themselves pursued, and quite resolved to die rather than allow 
themselves to be taken. But what was their joy on recognising 

* Desormeaux, vol. iii.,p. 201. 



220 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

Guitaut and Chavaignac, who had come to meet them with two 
other gentlemen !* 

Thus did Conde, surmounting a thousand dangers, arrive at 
Chatillon, and introduce himself into the park by a postern. 
He had never entered the Chateau since his mother's death. 
But neither that recollection nor his own fatigue could then 
detain him ; the smallest delay might expose him to become 
a prisoner of war, and the soldiers of the Marechal d'Hocquin- 
court had already penetrated into the town. The Prince 
therefore recommenced his journey with all possible speed, 
having received intelligence as to the position of the troops he 
wished to join ; and he did accordingly join them near Lorris, at 
the entrance of the Forest of Orleans. 

The troops, discouraged by the divisions amongst the chiefs, 
and the chiefs themselves partly aware of and dreading their own 
incapacity, received Conde as their deliverer with a joy and a 
surprise which cannot be described. Without losing a moment, 
the Prince led them before the walls of Montargis, and summoned 
the garrison and the townspeople to surrender; they hesitated. 
Then Conde looked at his watch, and sent them word that if 
they did not open their gates within an hour he would plunder 
the town and hang the inhabitants. This threat, and still more 
his name, awed them to obedience ere the hour had elapsed, and 
it was said afterwards at Paris that Monsieur le Prince had taken 
Montargis with his watch.f Then profiting by the dispersion of 
the army of Hocquincourt, he fell upon them suddenly during 
the night, with the intrepidity and the success which I have 
already attempted to describe. 

The Marechal de Turenne, having recognised this new adversary 
by the light of the conflagration he had kindled, continued in all 
haste his march towards a plain, where he had given a rendezvous 
to his cavalry for the earliest dawn of day. During this time the 
Marechal d'Hocquincourt, recovered from his first surprise, and 
rallying the remains of his troops, had taken up his position be- 
hind the village of Bleneau : he had with him eight hundred 
horse, and was protected by a narrow dyke and a deep stream. 
Monsieur le Prince did not hesitate to follow with only a hun- 

* Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld, vol. ii., p. 102. 
f Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. ii., p. 102. 



1652.] ACTION AT GIEN. 221 

dred ?naitres, but the Duke de Nemours having inconsiderately 
set fire to some thatched roofs in the village, Hocquincourt was 
enabled to see and reckon the small numbers of his assailants. 
He thought himself able to overthrow them easily : on the other 
hand, Conde forming his friends into a squadron, led them 
himself to the charge. This little squadron, composed almost 
entirely of gentlemen, performed prodigies of valour. Young 
Marsillac, who now for the first time saw fire, rushed forward 
twelve or fifteen paces from the ranks, and killed an officer of 
the Royal army with a single stroke. They were beginning, 
however, to give way before numbers, when thirty more maitres 
passed the stream. Then Conde, putting himself at their head, 
with La Rochefoucauld, charged the enemy both in flank and 
front, and completely routed them. They fled, leaving their 
cannon and their baggage, and the Prince followed them, sword 
in hand, killing or making prisoners all those he overtook. But 
he halted at last on seeing (it was already daylight) the 
Marechal de Turenne and a new army ranged before him. 

The news of this conflict struck dismay into their Majesties 
at Gien, w T hen they rose in the morning. From the windows 
of the Chateau they could see the whole hill-side covered with 
fugitives, of whom some from fear, and others to excuse them- 
selves, declared that all was lost, and that the whole army was 
defeated. Anne of Austria, however, did not express any alarm : 
according to the Memoirs of the time, " She was dressing her 
" hair when she heard these tidings, and she remained fixed be- 
" fore her looking-glass, not neglecting the arrangement of a 
" single curl."* Must we, like the greater number of historians, 
praise her courage and her greatness of mind on this occasion, f 
or was it only that love of dress which sometimes appertains to 
ladies of fifty? But the Cardinal, who had no curls to dress, 
did not show himself as calm as his mistress. (Let the reader 
here interpret this word tC mistress " exactly as he pleases !) If 
in truth Conde were to reach Gien, he could terminate the civil 
war with a single stroke, by seizing the persons of his enemies, 
and governing the State, according to his own pleasure, under 
the name of the Royal Minor. It was already proposed to take to 

* Memoirs of Montglat, vol. iii., p. 261. 

t " The majestic calmness of that Princess in the midst of a storm, when 
* clouds overspread her," &c. (Desormeaux, vol. iii., p. 225.) 



222 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

flight, to break down the bridge of Gien behind them, and to 
conduct the young King to Bourges. Before deciding upon any 
such measure, the Queen sent to ask the advice of the Marechal 
de Turenne. 

Turenne himself was at that moment a prey to violent agita- 
tion, hidden as ever by a cold and calm exterior. " Never," 
said he a long time after, " never did so many painful things 
" present themselves at once to the imagination of a man, as 
" were then presented to mine. It was but a short time since 
" that I had been reconciled with the Court, and that the com- 
" mand of the army, which was to be its safeguard, had been 
" intrusted to me. However small may be one's merit, one has 
" always ill-wishers or detractors ; I had some, who repeated 
" everywhere that I had a secret understanding with Monsieur 
" le Prince. Monsieur le Cardinal did not believe it ; but at 
" the first misfortune which had befallen me, he might, perhaps, 
" have shared this suspicion with others. Besides, I knew M. 
" d'Hocquincourt, who' would have been sure to declare that I 
" had exposed him to danger, and then had failed to assist him. 
" All these thoughts were distressing, and the greatest evil was 
" that Monsieur le Prince was coming up to me, the stronger in 
" numbers, and already victorious."* 

It was in the midst of all his officers that Turenne received the 
Queen's message, proposing to him to escape with her son to 
Bourges. He replied aloud, that it would be but a poor re- 
source, while the danger was so pressing. When the town of 
Orleans had closed its gates against the King before his army had 
received the least check, could it be hoped that another town 
would receive him vanquished and a fugitive ? Then he added, 
with a firm voice and noble courage, " We must either conquer 
" or perish here !" 

This noble courage was supported by the most skilful disposi- 
tions. Turenne had hardly four or five thousand men to oppose 
ten or twelve ; but he had chosen an excellent position on a 
plain, with a great wood between himself and the rebel army, 
and he had placed a battery upon a little height, to command the 
only causeway which traversed the wood. Conde having recon- 
noitred this position at sunrise, withdrew to assemble all his forces 

* Words of Turenne, cited in the Panegyric by St. Evremond. 



1652.] MARECHAL DHOCQUINCOURT. 223 

to attack it ; but he found that notwithstanding his orders, his 
foot-soldiers had disbanded for pillage. He passed several hours 
in collecting them, whilst Turenne on his side rallied and re- 
ceived into his ranks the fugitives from Hocquincourt's army. 
At last, about mid-day, the attack commenced. Monsieur le 
Prince first made his infantry enter the woods on the right and 
left of the road ; and the active and well-sustained fire of their 
musketry did indeed appear to make the Royal army draw back 
above a hundred paces. Then the cavalry of Conde began to 
defile over the causeway, spreading themselves as they entered 
the plain. But Turenne's flight was only a feint : hardly had 
six squadrons of the enemy been formed, ere he fell suddenly 
upon them with twelve, and threw them back upon the cause- 
way ; then unmasking his battery he made them lose a great 
many men in their retreat. Conde did not venture to renew the 
attack with his tired troops, on such ground, and against such an 
adversary ; and the rest of the day was passed in cannonades from 
either side. Towards night Monsieur le Prince retired in good 
order towards Chatillon-sur-Loing, and Monsieur le Marechal 
towards Gien. Whilst the firing still continued Conde acciden- 
tally perceived the Marechal d'Hocquincourt in the front ranks ; 
he sent him word that he should like to talk with him, and that 
the Marechal might freely advance on parole. Accordingly the 
Marechal approached in full confidence with some other officers. 
" The conversation/' says La Rochefoucauld, who was present, 
" passed in civilities and jests on the part of Monsieur le Prince, 
" and in excuses on that of the Marechal d'Hocquincourt, on 
* what had just happened, complaining of M. de Turenne." 
These ridiculous complaints, from a very unskilful officer, con- 
tinued even after his return to Gien ; but Turenne bore them 
with his usual sang-froid, saying only, " Losers like the Mare- 
" chal d'Hocquincourt must have leave to speak."* 

But the Court, which he had rescued from such imminent 
danger, did him greater justice. The Cardinal loaded Turenne 
with praises, and the Queen said aloud, that he had just, for the 
second time, been replacing the Crown on the head of her son. 
Let us acknowledge to the honour of these two warriors, that 
Conde alone, in that century, could have caused such dangers ; 
* Ramsay, History of Turenne, vol. i., p. 298. 

Q2 



224 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

and that Turenne alone would have known how to surmount 
them ! 

After these attacks Monsieur le Prince, seeing no opportunity 
of striking a decisive blow, left the command of the army to 
Messieurs de Tavannes and de Vallon, and yielded to the entreaties 
of his friends, who were loudly calling for his return to Paris. 
His presence and his efforts might, it was said, reclaim the Duke 
of Orleans from irresolution, rouse the populace in their favour, 
and perhaps (which was still more important than gaining a 
battle) draw the Parliament to their party. The entrance of 
Conde, still resplendent with the laurels of Bleneau, and accom- 
panied by Nemours, by Beaufort, by La Rochefoucauld, and by 
a crowd of other noblemen, did indeed appear a day of triumph, 
and the populace received him with repeated cries of " Long 
" live the Princes, and death to the Mazarins I" But the Magis- 
trates, always incorruptible in the midst of this corrupt age, did 
not allow themselves either to be dazzled by victories or seduced 
by promises. The next day after his arrival, Monsieur le 
Prince having gone to take his place in the Parliament, and 
thank the Company for having suspended the execution of the 
Letters Patent issued against him, the President Bailleul replied 
with austerity, that the Parliament could not see with a favour- 
able eye a Prince of the Blood guilty of high treason, in declared 
alliance with the enemies of the State, and seated on the Fleurs 
de LySj while his hands were still stained with the blood of 
the Royal troops ! 

Some days after, at the " Cour des Aides" the haughty 
hero had again to submit to still stronger remonstrances from 
President Amelot. " In the situation which I have the honour 
" to fill," said this intrepid magistrate, " I cannot deny that 
" there is great reason for surprise at seeing Monsieur le Prince 
" appear in these High Courts of Justice as though he were 
" triumphing in the spoils of his Majesty; and what is still I 
" more strange, send round a drum to levy troops with moneyl 
" coming from Spain, in the principal town in the kingdom,! 
" and the most faithful to the King !" At these words the Dukel 
of Orleans and the Prince of Conde answered together withl 
great violence. " What is tnat you say, Sir ?" exclaimed Gaston ;| 
" you treat us even worse than President Bailleul !" Conde J 



1652.] ALTERCATION WITH PRESIDENT AMELOT. 225 

with still more warmth, added that it was not true. Without 
being disconcerted or losing his dignity, the President replied, 
" Sir, you ought not to have interrupted me ; the King could 
" not do so, or if he did, he ought not ; but you neither can nor 
"ought. And what is not true, Sir?— did you not cause the 

* drum to beat ? Did you not receive money from Spain ? No 
" one doubts it : he who beat the drum wore your colours and 
" passed before my door. If you acknowledge it, what I have 
" been saying is true ; if you do not acknowledge it, let the 
" drummer be hanged dressed in your colours. As for the money 
" from Spain, it appears by the bankers'-books, those silent but 
" unquestionable witnesses, that you have received six hundred 
" thousand livres ; and if you had not received any money, what 
" means had you for waging war against the King?" — "This 
" Court of Justice will surely not ratify your words," said Mon- 
sieur le Prince. — " My ratification," said Amelot, " is beneath 
" my President's cap, and there is no one in this Company who 
" is not a good servant to the King, or who would wish to disavow 
" me." — Then Conde, confused and abashed, could answer very 
little more. He observed at last, " You ought to have said this 
" to me in private, and not before every body." — " If I had had 
" the honour," rejoined the President again, " to have an audience 
" of you, Sir, I would have made you this reproach in private, 
" but I must continue to make it in this place ; and if I had not 
" done so, I should be a prevaricator to my trust.'' — " And I," 
" said the Prince, should be a prevaricator to my honour if I 

* did not deny it." — " Had you been jealous of preserving your 
" honour," said once more Amelot, "you would not bear arms 
" against the King."* 

Thus did these honourable magistrates regard with horror all 
alliance with the enemies of the State. But, on the other hand, 
they did not relax in their just resentment against Cardinal 
Mazarin. If one day they issued a decree against the Spanish 
alliance, the following day they issued another against the Ita- 
lian favourite. They would not either inflict any injury on the 
Royal authority, nor bear any from it. This third party which 
they proposed was without doubt the best ; but did they understand 
sufficiently how much the materials were wanting to form it ? 

* These speeches are reported by Conrart (Memoirs, p. 34 — 38). He was 
Secretary of the French Academy. His Memoirs did not appear till 1826, 



226 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

Monsieur le Prince, soured to the greatest degree by their ob- 
stinate resistance and their demands, did not know what resolu- 
tion to take. Sometimes he lent himself to commotion and dis- 
order, hoping to obtain through the fears of the magistrates 
what he could not from his prayers and entreaties. Sometimes 
he projected to enrol the seditious populace of his party, and make 
soldiers of them. Accordingly, he assembled under his banners 
as many as ten thousand men from the dregs of the people, and 
marched at their head to take St. Denis, which was defended 
only by a battalion of Swiss. But- at the very first fire all 
these miserable wretches shamefully disbanded, leaving Conde 
(himself the seventh) on the banks of the ditch. Sometimes 
too he thought of rejoining his army, where his absence had 
already produced the worst effects. Turenne had suddenly fallen 
upon Messieurs de Tavannes and de Vallon, generals who would 
have been quite worthy of commanding the militia of Paris. They 
had just given a fete to Mademoiselle on her return from Orleans, 
and they thought only of amusing themselves when they saw 
their troops surprised, giving way, and driven back with loss* 
as far as the town of Etampes, where Turenne undertook to 
besiege them. 

During this time Conde* was eagerly soliciting assistance from 
the Spaniards ; but they, wishing to besiege on their own behalf 
Dunkirk and Gravelines, could not divide their army. In order, 
however, not to witness the destruction of their new ally, they 
gave a large sum to the Duke de Lorraine, to induce him to 
march into France with his army and oblige Turenne to raise 
the siege of Etampes. This Duke de Lorraine was a singular 
man, morose and caustic, laughing at every thing except ready 
money. He did in fact oblige Turenne to raise the siege of 
Etampes, according to his engagement, thus enabling the insur- 
gent army to fall back upon Paris ; but then another large sum 
from Mazarin appeared to him a strong and unanswerable reason 
for marching back again towards the frontier. The Archduke's 
gold had brought him, the Cardinal's gold sent him away. 

This progress of the war did not, however, prevent Conde 
from taking some steps towards peace. He confided his interests 
to the Duchess de Chatillon, whom he had again found at Paris, 
and of whom he had become more enamoured than ever. On her 
side, this lady, much offended by the new attachment of M. de 



1652.] THE DUCHESS DE CHATILLON. 227 

Nemours for Madame de Longueville during the journey to 
Bordeaux, had ceased to offer any resistance to the Prince's 
wishes. She went to the Court invested with full powers from 
him, and was treated with the greatest consideration by the 
Queen. " Had Minerva," says an historian, " descended from 
" the skies, holding an olive-branch in her hand, she could not 
" have been received with greater honours than the Duchess."* 
Minerva was not, however, the goddess whom Madame de Chatil- 
lon most resembled; and in spite of her fair words and her 
fine eyes, she could bring neither party to agreement as to the 
conditions of the treaty. 

This public announcement of Condi's love for Madame de 
Chatillon, contrasted somewhat with the excessive devotion 
which he affected since his return to Paris. He hoped to gain 
the applause of the populace by pretending a fervour of piety he 
was very far from feeling. One day that public prayers were 
offered up for peace and the dismissal of Mazarin, and that a 
procession was carrying the relics of St. Genevieve, Monsieur 
le Prince, who awaited it on his knees in the street, rushed forward 
like a madman and threw himself amongst the priests, kissing with 
transport a hundred times over the sacred shrine, and pressing 
his rosary against it. The edified spectators exclaimed around 
him, " Oh the good Prince ! Oh how devout he is !"f 

In the midst of so many parts to play, and so many anxieties to 
suffer, the Prince's patience was well nigh exhausted. One day 
several Councillors of the Parliament came to address and ques- 
tion him respectfully upon his negotiations with the Court. 
Conde answered proudly that he was tired of rendering an account 
of his actions to people of such little consequence as they were, 
and who judged of him in their own manner ; that when he made 
war, they said he wanted to take the Crown off the King's head ; 
that when he proposed some terms for reconciliation, he was called 
a Mazarin ; and that therefore he could never do anything to 
please them, and he should henceforward think only of his own 
affairs, without rendering any account of them to such fellows, 
whom he would soon teach how to behave, and how to bear in 
mind the respect that was due to him.}; On another occasion, 

* Desormeaux, vol. iii., p. 256. 

f Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iv., p. 364. 

X Memoirs of Conrart, p. 73. 



228 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

finding a great crowd of all kinds of people, who were exclaiming 
" Peace ! Peace !" and observing a man close to him who cried 
out louder than the others, Monsieur le Prince seized him angrily 
by the buttons of his coat and asked him — " How do you want 
" peace ? Speak out ! On what terms do you want it ? Do you 
"mean that Mazarin should remain, or that he should go?" 
The other, completely confounded, replied, " Monseigneur, down 
" with Mazarin !" " Well, then," retorted the Prince, " is not 
" this the very thing that we are aiming at ? Why do you make 
" so much noise?"* 

The statesman on whom at this time the Prince principally 
relied was Chavigni, an old man, for many years versed — we 
might say corrupted — in the basest Court intrigues. At this 
period he was Governor of Vincennes, a very important post for 
the warfare around Paris. In the month of June Conde went 
once to dine with him. He requested to see the room in the 
Donjon in which he had so long been a captive ; and, remember- 
ing all his expedients for writing to his friends without, he still 
found in a hole in the chimney two pens which he had hidden 
there.")" 

Some time after Chavigni was seized with an illness from 
which he did not recover. Conde went to see him in his dying 
moments, and showed himself very much touched at his state as 
long as they were together ; but it is said that, on going away, 
he mimicked the contortions of the dying man, and added, "He 
" is as ugly as the devil." J How strange to find such harshness 
in so great a mind ! 

This harshness of Monsieur le Prince appeared equally when 
news was brought to him from Guyenne of the almost desperate 
state of the Princess, his wife's, health. Without giving a single 
day to her remembrance — without even waiting for the certainty 
of her death — he already thought of a new marriage. Here is the 
manner in which Mademoiselle de Montpensier refers to it in her 
Memoirs ; " News came from Bordeaux that Madame la Prin- 
" cesse was dying ; she had a constant fever, and was eight months 
11 gone with child. Monsieur asked for tidings of her of Mon- 
" sieur le Prince. He told him that she was in such a state that 

* Memoirs of Conrart, p. 93. 

f Memoirs of Claude Joli, Chanoine de Paris. 

I Memoirs of Motteville, vol. iv., p. 390. 



1652.] SCHEMES FOR HIS SECOND MARRIAGE. 229 

" the next news he expected to receive would be that of her 
u death." . . . . " Monsieur de Chavigni (for it was two or 
u three weeks previous to the death of this poor man) said to me, 
" as I came up, i We are talking of poor Madame la Princesse, 
" and we are remarrying Monsieur le Prince :' I blushed and 
" went away. Madame de Frontenac told me afterwards that 
" Monsieur de Chavigni had been telling her that Monsieur le 
" Prince was already quite consoled for his loss in the hope of 
K marrying me." * 

Clemence, however, did not die ; and she soon after gave birth 
to a son, who was feeble and languishing like herself. When 
Mademoiselle sent to congratulate Monsieur le Prince upon this 
news, he replied harshly, " that it was no subject of rejoicing to 
" him, since the child could not live above two or three days. ,, f 
In spite of this paternal prognostic the child did live yet some 
time, and his christening was performed with great solemnity and 
rejoicing by the Bordelais, who were full of esteem and admira- 
tion for the Princess his mother. He was held at the font by 
the Duchess de Longueville and the " Premier Jurat ;" and he 
was named Louis de Bordeaux, after his father and after the town 
which so faithfully supported his party. J Clemence remained for 
some time seriously ill, and her life was once again despaired of; 
but at last she had the misfortune to recover. Providence re 
served her for a more protracted agony. 

After the raising of the siege of Etampes, Conde left Paris, to 
take once more the command of the troops. They were then re- 
duced to five thousand men : he led them to St. Cloud, where the 
bridge ensured him a communication with the capital. He soon 
had two armies opposed to him, each more numerous than his 
own : first, that commanded by Turenne, and coming from 
Etampes ; then a second, under the Marechal de la Ferte, and 
composed of new reinforcements, for which Mazarin had stripped 
the frontier of Flanders and adjourned the conquest of Guyenne. 

The two Marshals having completed their junction, fixed their 

head quarters at St. Denis ; there, too, the Court established 

itself, and Turenne threw a new bridge of boats over the Seine. 

Then Conde, seeing that his position at St. Cloud was no longer 

tenable, resolved to move his army to the other side of Paris, 

* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. ii., p. 244. f lb., p. 278. 

X Life of Madame de Longueville, 1738, vol. ii., p. 45. 



230 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

behind Charenton, and intrench himself upon the tongue of land 
formed by the confluence of the Marne and the Seine* He accord- 
ingly began his march during the night of the 1st to the 2nd of 
July, defiling along the walls of Paris, since his soldiers were 
refused admittance into the town. But his movements, however 
well concerted and secret, could not escape the vigilance of Tu- 
renne, who hastened forward with twenty-two squadrons to arrest 
his progress. It was seven o'clock in the morning ; the rear- 
guard, the post of danger, where Conde himself commanded, had 
already been attacked and thrown into disorder, with the loss of 
its baggage ; and Conde had perceived that he should not be able 
to reach Charenton without fighting. He instantly recalled M. 
de Tavannes, who conducted the advanced-guard, and who had 
already passed the suburbs, and he concentrated his little army 
in order of battle round the Porte St. Antoine. 

This gate, then overlooked on one side by the circuit-wall of 
Paris and the ramparts of the Bastille, had before it on the other 
side a large space, where the three principal streets of the Fau- 
bourg met. Each of these three streets was defended by intrench- 
ments, which the townspeople had lately raised to screen them- 
selves from the marauders of the Lorraine army. Conde' hastily 
threw up some new barricades and embattled several houses ; then 
he confided to NemourSj Tavannes, and Vallon the defence of each 
of these openings ; keeping himself, as well as La Rochefoucauld, 
ready to hasten to the post of the greatest danger. On the other 
hand the young Louis XIV., placed on the heights of Charonne, 
saw displayed before his eyes all these sad preparations for civil 
war, and sent messenger after messenger to Turenne, to press 
him to commence the attack, without waiting for the troops of 
M. de la Ferte. Yielding to these entreaties, Turenne made 
every arrangement with his never-failing skill. In order to dis- 
tinguish his troops on that fatal day, when Frenchmen were to 
fight against Frenchmen, Conde made them wear a wisp of 
straw in their hats, and Turenne a piece of paper.* 

The attacks were fierce, and several times renewed : the 
resolute defence being everywhere animated by the presence and 
example of Monsieur le Prince. " There were then," says an 
historian of our times, " more officers than soldiers in the fray ; 

* Desormeaux, vol. iii., p. 301. 



1652.1 BATTLE DE LA PORTE ST. ANTOINE. 231 

" the great Turenne and the great Conde within pistol shot of 
" each other, fighting themselves hand to hand, and showing an 
" admirable contrast between martial fury and intrepid coolness.* 
" — c Did you see the Prince of Conde on that day ? ' was after- 
" wards asked of Monsieur de Turenne. ' I did not see one 
" Prince of Conde/ replied he ; c I saw more than twelve ! ' so 
"rapidly did this hero appear to rush from danger to danger, 
" and from exploit to exploit." — On that day he ran an especial 
risk. A gentleman, named St. Mesgrin, had vowed a personal 
hatred to him on account of Mademoiselle de Vigean, of whom 
St. Mesgrin had been greatly enamoured, and on terms which 
might have led to their marriage ; but his love was forced to 
yield to the less legitimate passion of Monsieur le Prince. From 
this bitter remembrance St. Mesgrin had conspired, with two of 
his friends, to make the person of Monsieur le Prince their first 
and only object in the conflict. All three of them, therefore, 
aimed at Conde amongst the little squadron of his friends — all 
three fell, mortally wounded, at his feet. Many other gentle- 
men on either side were killed or wounded. Musketry poured in 
like rain. Each of the barricades was taken and retaken with 
fury* They fought on every story, and almost in every room, 
of the houses which had been embattled. Towards mid-day, 
however, excessive fatigue and insupportable heat put a stop to 
the conflict for some moments. It is related that Monsieur le 
Prince, who wore a breast-plate, and who acted more than all the 
rest, was so completely soaked by perspiration and stifled by 
his armour, that he was obliged to have himself disarmed and 
unbooted, and to throw himself quite naked upon the grass in 
a field, where he rolled and wallowed like a tired horse ; then 
he dressed himself and was armed, and returned to end the 
conflict.*)* 

But his weakened army could no longer struggle with ad- 
vantage against superior troops, receiving every moment fresh 
reinforcements. The Prince's barricades were everywhere broken 
through, and his best officers fell around him, wounded and 
dying. Nemours received thirteen blows on his armour, but 
was only wounded in his hand. La Rochefoucauld had his 
cheeks pierced by a musket-shot, from which he remained blind 

* St. Aulaire, History of the Fronde, vol. iii., p. 191. 
f Memoirs of Conrart, p. 112. 



232 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

for a long time. Bercenet, one of the nine in the journey of 
Agen, was killed dead on the spot. The soldiers, repulsed from 
the three streets of the Faubourg, were driven back upon the 
gate of St. Antoine, which was closed against them ; the wicket 
opened only occasionally for the dead and wounded, who were 
carried in crowds through the town. On the other hand, the 
Marechal de la Ferte had just arrived with the heavy artillery. 
The Royal army was preparing itself for a last and decisive 
attack, and nothing remained for Conde but to await a glorious 
death, arms in hand and his face turned to the enemy. 

It was in this extremity that Conde received an ally on whom 
he had not reckoned, and who alone could save him. This ally 
was a young woman — it was his cousin Mademoiselle, already 
celebrated by her conduct at Orleans, and full of the courage 
which her father wanted. Whilst the weak Gaston remained 
trembling in his palace, she made him sign an order to the 
Governor of the Bastille to obey in all things his daughter's in- 
junctions : provided with this order, she went to the Hotel de 
Ville, she supplicated the Prevot of the Merchants, she threat- 
ened the Marechal de l'Hopital, Governor of Paris, that she 
would tear off his beard, and that he should die by no hand but 
hers 5* in short, by dint of entreaties and menaces, she obtained 
from them the permission that Conde's troops might enter the 
town. Then, followed by several other ladies, she flew towards 
the Porte St. Antoine, meeting on her way many of the 
dead and dying. She saw La Rochefoucauld nearly sense- 
less in the arms of his son and Gourville ; she saw Vallon, 
carried in a chair, who exclaimed on seeing her, " Well, my 
" good mistress, we are all lost !" She saw Guitaut as pale as 
death, all unbuttoned, and reeling on his horse ; she asked him 
as she passed, " Shall you die, Guitaut ?" and he made a sign of 
his head in the negative. " I found at each step," adds she, 
" that I made in the Rue St. Antoine, men wounded, some in 
" the head, others in the body, the arms, or the legs — on horses, 
" on foot, on ladders, on planks, and on hand-barrows — to say 
66 nothing of dead bodies ! " f 

Mademoiselle at length reached a house adjoining the walls 
of the town, and then sent word of her arrival to the Prince of 

* Memoirs of Conrart, p. 109. 
f Memoirs of Montpeiisier, vol. ii., p. 183. 



1652.] HIS RETREAT INTO PARIS. 233 

Conde. He appeared before her in a dreadful state ; two inches 
thick of dust upon his face, his hair all dishevelled, his collar 
and his shirt stained with blood. Though he had not been 
wounded, his cuirass was covered with blows, and he held his 
naked sword in his hand, having lost its scabbard. All in tears, 
he sunk down into a seat, saying, " Forgive my grief. You see 
" a man in despair : I have lost all my friends : Messieurs 
" de Nemours, de la Rochefoucauld, and Clinchamp are mor- 
" tally wounded !" Mademoiselle hastened to assure him that 
their wounds were not dangerous, and that she brought means 
for saving himself and the rest of the army. The Prince ex- 
pressed the greatest joy ; but when she pressed him to stay 
with her, and to make his troops enter instantly, he replied, 
" I will not be reproached with having retreated in broad day 
" before the Mazarins !" 

Returning hastily, therefore, to his post, he continued to stand 
firm till night, when he entered Paris with his troops (he 
being the eighth of the rear-guard), protected by the artillery 
of the town, and by several volleys of cannon which Made- 
moiselle caused to be fired from the ramparts of the Bastille 
upon the Royal army as soon as it attempted to approach. From 
the heights of Charonne the King and the Cardinal saw with 
vexation their prey escape from their hands, and they withdrew 
full of resentment against Mademoiselle, who had been the sole 
cause of their being prevented from following and destroying 
their vanquished enemies. 

This day, which is called the battle of St. Antoine, was equally 
glorious to Conde, the vanquished, and to Turenne, the victor ; 
the former had only yielded to the superiority of numbers ; he 
had displayed at the same time, and in the highest degree, the 
valour of an ancient knight and the tactics of a modern general. 
Why must History next have to record the narrative of another 
day, not less memorable, but memorable only by a crime 
which has left an eternal stain upon the memory of the great 
Conde ! 

The Magistrates of Paris were by no means satisfied at seeing 
the town take part with a faction which they thought rebellious, 
and they loudly accused the Prevot of the Merchants and the 
Marechal de l'Hopital of weakness for having yielded to the 



234 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

entreaties of Mademoiselle at the Hotel de Ville. The Prince 
of Conde and the Duke of Orleans resolved at all hazards to 
overcome this legal resistance, even were it necessary to use the 
most violent means, — even tumult, even conflagration, even 
bloodshed. Already, before the battle of St. Antoine, such dis- 
graceful means had been employed by the Prince's party ; the 
Presidents Bailleul, de Nesmond, and several Councillors had 
been seriously wounded, and several of their servants killed 
before their eyes: but never did they allow themselves to be 
alarmed, never did they swerve from their duty. This time it 
was determined to do things on a greater scale. Several hundred 
soldiers were chosen, who were disguised as artisans, and mixed 
with the populace in the Place de Greve: they were on the 
first signal to rush forward together, break down the gates of 
the Hotel de Ville, set fire to the building, and terrify into sub- 
mission the magistrates who should dare to oppose the union 
with the Princes. 

At the appointed hour, therefore, on the 4th of July, the 
Prince of Conde and the Duke of Orleans having convoked a 
General Assembly, went to take their places at the Hotel de 
Ville. They first thanked the Magistrates for the assistance 
which their army had received on the day of the battle (thanking 
warmly is sometimes an excellent expedient for obtaining 
more !), and they declared that the moment was now come for 
all good Frenchmen to make common cause. Not being able, 
however, to carry with them the majority of votes, or obtain 
the succours of men and money which they needed, Conde rose 
hastily, and left the hall with Gaston. The moment they ap- 
peared upon the steps of the Place de Greve, they exclaimed 
aloud to the populace, " These gentlemen will do nothing for 
"us; they intend to put us off from day to day. They are 
" Mazarins ; deal with them as you please ! "* These words were 
hardly uttered, and the Princes gone, before several musket-shots 
were fired against the windows of the Hotel de Ville. The 
Deputies at first exclaimed that it was a popular commotion, 
caused by some ill-disposed persons, and that it was of no con- 
sequence ; but the Marechal de PHopital soon recognised the 

* Memoirs of Conrart, p. 116. 



1652.] TUMULT AT THE PLACE DE GREVE. 235 

presence and the guidance of soldiers. Besides the firing, which 
still continued, wood had been piled up against all the doors ; 
they were rubbed with pitch, oil, and resin, and then they were 
set on fire. A furious fight commenced between the town-guard 
and the good townspeople on one side, and the rabble and dis- 
guised soldiers on the other. In vain was Conde sent for, 
entreating him to come and stop the slaughter ; the Prince, shut 
up in the Luxembourg with Gaston, replied coldly that he did 
not understand seditions, and that he felt a coward in them.* It 
is, however, very probable, and there is ground for hoping, that 
the wretches whom he had employed went much beyond his 
orders. Several hundred men were killed on either side, and the 
bodies were immediately thrown into the river; however, by 
help of disguises and posterns, or by dint of money as ransom 
for their lives, the greater number of the chief men found means 
to escape. It was only towards the middle of the night that 
order was re-established, and that a gloomy silence succeeded at 
last to this fearful strife. 

Happily for humanity, such attempts almost always turn 
against their instigators. A general indignation, a profound 
terror, took possession of all minds. Even the return of 
despotism seemed preferable to the continuation of anarchy. 
Many of the bourgeois hastened to leave the town, now become 
the scene of bloodshed. The Parliament determined to suspend 
its sittings ; and the King having taken advantage of this con- 
juncture by a declaration which transferred the Parliament to 
Pontoise, fifteen Councillors and nearly all the Presidents left 
Paris in disguise, and went to the appointed place under the pre- 
sidency of Mathieu Mole. Those who still remained had no 
longer the same weight with the populace, nor the same con- 
fidence in themselves. In vain did Conde, seeing the bad effect 
of the massacre and conflagration at the Hotel de Ville, hasten 
to disavow it, and protest that he had taken no part in it : public 
opinion was already decided, and was daily assuming new- 
strength. He had continued since the battle of St. Antoine to 
make his partisans wear a wisp of straw in their hats as a ral- 
lying sign. Hereupon a song was composed against him, which 
at that time was in great vogue. It ended thus : — 

* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. ii., p. 208. 



236 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. ix. 

" Ma foi, bourgeois, ce n'est pas jeu ; 
" Craignez ime fin malheureuse, 
" Car la paille est fort dangereuse 
" Entre les mains d'un boute-feu !" * 

The Prince himself, seeing his party fail from day to day, 
and decline more and more towards its ruin, was consumed 
by the bitterest grief. He appeared so weary of heaiing the 
words — Parliament, Cour des Aides, assembled Chambers, and 
the Hotel de Ville, that he often said that Monsieur his grand- 
father had never been more tired of the preachers of La R,o- 
chelle. Sometimes he added, " I should like myself much better 
" at the head of four squadrons in the Ardennes, than com- 
" manding twelve millions of people like these we have here !"t 

At last, all the anxieties which he suffered, all the toils 
that he was compelled to undergo, caused him to fall ill of a 
burning fever, from which he did not for a long time recover. 
During this interval the Royal army moved from before Paris 
at a second apparition of the Lorraine army ; and a very pro- 
pitious moment presented itself for attacking it suddenly, but 
the officers who commanded in Conde's place were not men 
to make use of such an advantage. When their neglect was 
announced to Conde, he called out furiously from his sick bed, 
" One ought to give bridles to Tavannes and to Vallon — they 
" are asses !"{ 

Other tidings no less grievous to the Prince, came from 
Montrond. After a year's siege, the Marquis de Persan had 
been forced to ask for a parley, and had promised to surrender 
on the 1st of September if he received no reinforcements. In 
this emergency Conde' hastened to send M. de Briorde with five 
hundred horse, and with orders to force the passage of the Loire. 
His further instructions were to combine, if possible, with Mes- 
sieurs de Valencey, de Levis, de St. Geran, and other nobles of 
Berry and the Bourbon nais who had promised to raise their 
vassals for the relief of Montrond. Accordingly, De Briorde, 
having crossed the Loire between Sully and Jargeau and left 
Bourges to his right, was advancing by rapid marches. But un- 
happily for the success of this scheme, it was prematurely dis- 

* Manuscript Collection of Tallemant des Reaux, as quoted in a note to 
the Memoirs of Conrart, p. 137. t Memoirs of Retz, vol. iii., p. 249, 

I Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. ii. ? p. 280. 



1652.] SURRENDER OF MONTROND. 237 

closed by one Le Bosquet, a babbling Marechal de Camp, to 
Count de Bussy Rabutin, who was still posted at La Charite. 
Bussy hereupon bestirred himself; in addition to some cavalry 
of his own, he mustered many loyal gentlemen of the province 
and their retainers, and passing the Loire, marched forward with 
the whole body to Neronde. From that town, on the afternoon 
of the 23rd of August, he saw the horsemen of De Briorde de- 
filing along the edge of the distant hills. That sight was a fresh 
incentive to exertion ; the same evening he marched as far as 
Banegon, and the next morning joined the Count de Palluau, 
in the lines before Montrond. Both commanders combining 
took post ; Bussy at a convent of Capuchins on the little river 
Marmande, and Palluau on a height to the left of the Prince's 
park of Montrond among vineyards, and his front fortified with 
palisades : altogether they had, besides the volunteers, two regi- 
ments and four pieces of cannon. 

At day-break on the 25th of August De Briorde and his troops 
came in sight, advancing along the opposite bank of the Cher. 
But he found the position of the Royalists so strong both by na- 
ture and by skill, that even at its first aspect he despaired of forcing 
it. To prove, however, to his master that nothing on his part 
had been left untried, he passed the Cher with his troops and 
attacked the outposts of Count de Palluau, now joined by Bussy 
from the Capuchin Convent. Being repulsed with a loss of 
twenty-five or thirty men, he withdrew to some distance, though 
still keeping in sight during the remainder of that day. But 
next morning he commenced his march to go back over the 
Loire, and left Montrond to its fate.* Thus the fortress, on the 
appointed day, the 1st of September, surrendered to the Count 
de Palluau. As a reward for this service he received the baton 
of a Marechal de France, and took the title of Clerembault. 
According to the instructions of the Court, he demolished all the 
new fortifications, which (as long as the provisions lasted) ren- 
dered the place nearly impregnable. He only left the ancient Cha- 
teau, which was standing for a. long time afterwards, and on which 
the arms of the House of Albret were everywhere emblazoned, j 
It is an ancient and illustrious escutcheon, which claims co- 

* Memoirs of Count Bussy Rabutin, vol. i., pp. 350 — 363, ed. 1731. 
t Boulainvilliers, Etat de la France, vol. ii., p. 213, ed. 1727. 

R 



238 LIFE OF CONDfi. [chap. ix. 

ordinate rank with the crequier of Crequy, the macles of Rohan, 
and the alerions of Montmorency. 

An event which tended still more to discourage Condi's party 
and distress himself, was the tragic death of the Duke de Ne- 
mours, who having again quarrelled with his brother-in-law, the 
Duke de Beaufort, they fought a duel, and Nemours fell mortally 
wounded at the first pistol shot. 

Under these circumstances, Mazarin, who was always skilful 
in taking advantage of the faults of others, determined to strike 
a last blow at the expiring party of the Fronde. He left the 
Court, and again retired to Bouillon, pretending to forsake all 
affairs, but in reality not ceasing to direct them absolutely. At 
this news there was, as it were, a general defection against 
the Princes ; the continuation of the war appeared now to be 
without a motive, or at least without a pretext, and the populace 
called loudly for peace. The Princes then attempted a nego- 
tiation with the Court ; but the Queen answered with much 
haughtiness, that it was now no longer a case for negotiation, 
but for submission. 

Absolute submission, or an alliance with Spain, did indeed 
appear to be the only choice which remained to them. The 
Duke of Orleans determined for the former : he received orders 
to retire to Blois, and not again to leave his own appanage; 
and he lived there eight years more, till his death, dying very ob- 
scurely, and despised by every one. The Prince of Conde after 
great and violent agitation of mind adopted the second alter- 
native, and left Paris with his troops on the 14th of October, to 
throw himself into the arms of Spain. A few days after the 
King and the Queen, followed by a brilliant cavalcade, made their 
triumphal entry into Paris. A Lit de Justice was held at the 
Louvre ; Louis XIV. appeared there, surrounded by the Peers 
and Marshals of France, and the Chancellor in his presence 
read a Royal Declaration, which excepted from the general am- 
nesty the Princes of Conde and of Conti, and several other 
noblemen and gentlemen, and which expressly forbad the Courts 
of Justice for the future to take any part in the affairs of the 
State. The famous Edict of the month of October, 1648, which 
ougKt to have become the basis of a legal government, and 
which had been received with so much enthusiasm, was de- 



1652.] CONCLUSION OF THE FRONDE. 239 

clared null and void ; and this revocation excited no resistance 
in the Parliament, no murmurs amongst the populace ; so much 
had liberty lost of its prestige since it had degenerated into 
licence ! The Cardinal de Ketz, though he had for a long time 
remained shut up in his Archbishop's Palace, and secluded from 
public affairs, might perhaps — so at least it was feared — create 
new troubles ; but on the 19th of December he was arrested at the 
Louvre, and conducted first to the Donjon of Vincennes, and 
afterwards to the Chateau of Nantes. Then, no obstacle remain- 
ing in the way of Mazarin's arbitrary power, he could a second 
time return from his exile, and again seize the reins of govern- 
ment, his skill and his fortunate star having at length triumphed 
over all his enemies. Had he not good reason to choose for 
his device, a rock beaten by waves, and the words — Quam frus- 

TRA ET MURMURE QUANTO ?* 

Thus ended the Fronde, a party in which we may highly 
commend the magistrates for their integrity, and the gentlemen 
for their valour. But the former might, as it appears to me, be 
blamed for want of foresight, and the latter for want of virtue. 
When the members of the Parliament of Paris were taking active 
measures at the same time against the Court and against the 
insurrection — when they were declaring both Cardinal Mazarin 
and the Prince of Conde guilty of high treason, — one might well 
have said to them, like Themistocles to the haughty envoy of a 
very small town, u My friend, your words would require an 
r army !" When the great nobles united themselves without 
scruple and without shame to the Spaniards — when they were 
ready to sacrifice the good of the State to the smallest of their 
personal interests, — how could they hope for the confidence and 
the support of the people ? Thus it was that the dawn of a 
better government and of a legal liberty were obscured and lost 
to France, and that the darkness of despotism became more 
dense than ever — darkness not to be dispelled but by a fearful 
storm ! 

* Memoirs of Bussy Kabutin, voL ii., p. 165, ed. 1711. 



r2 



2-10 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. x. 



CHAPTER X. 

Conde" s campaigns against France — Quarrel with his colleague the Conde de 
Fuensaldana — He takes Kocroy — Scene of his first and greatest victory 
revisited — The Princess of Conde maintains herself at Bordeaux — Her 
good conduct and popularity — The Bordelais yield, and the Princess em- 
barks at Bordeaux — Her harsh treatment by the Prince — Siege of Arras 
raised by Turenne— Queen Christina of Sweden — Conde forces the French 
lines at Valenciennes— State of affairs at Madrid — Battle of the Downs, 
near Dunkirk — Peace of the Pyrenees — Conde reinstated in France. 

I have no intention of treating in the same detail the cam- 
paigns of Conde which remain for me to tell, least of all those 
when, a deserter from his country, he endeavoured to wound 
Mazarin through the sides of France. Neither do I undertake 
a mere journal of battles and sieges. I am far, indeed, from 
the skill or knowledge of a Folard or a Jomini. But the art 
of war is not to be learnt in books, unless they be written by 
the hand of a Frederick or a Napoleon. What I seek, above all, 
is — in History, to unfold the spirit of the times — in biography, 
to trace the development of genius or the shades of character 
in a great man. I should wish to paint Conde not only in his 
uniform or his court dress, but such as he would appear to his 
valet de chambre — extolling the glory of his arms, but not dis- 
sembling his reverses, nor allowing his vices and defects, like 
spots upon the sun, to be merged in the brightness of his fame. 
On leaving Paris, Conde had advanced by forced marches to- 
wards the Spanish head -quarters. Of his first meeting with them 
we have some details by the Prince of Tarente, who was present : — 
"Two days after we had passed the river Aisne, the Prince 
" and the Count of Fuensaldana had an interview at Cressy 
" sur Seurre, to concert together the operations for the cam- 
" paign. Their first meeting, which was extremely cold, seemed 
" to forebode the ill understanding which ever since prevailed be- 
" tween them. We dined together, and the day passed without 



1653.] HIS CAMPAIGNS WITH THE SPANIARDS. 241 

" any resolution being finally taken Fuensaldana raised diffi- 

" culties against everything that was proposed."* At last it was 
agreed that the Spaniards should leave 3000 cavalry and 1500 
foot under the command of the Prince. With these reinforce- 
ments he succeeded in taking Khetel, Chateau-Portien, and 
several other places upon the frontier ; but finding Marshal Tu- 
renne before him at the head of a superior force, he drew back 
and fixed his winter- quarters at his own town of Stenay. 

By March next year the Prince repaired himself to Brussels, 
not only to concert measures with the Count of Fuensaldana, the 
Spanish General, but also with the Archduke Leopold, the Spa- 
nish Viceroy of the Low Countries. He was not long in be- 
coming convinced of the extreme slowness of these people ; how 
long after their deliberations came decision— how long after 
their decision, the orders for execution — how long after their 
orders, any attention to seeing them obeyed. 

These delays, which would have wearied even the most phleg- 
matic, appeared insupportable to the fiery soul of Conde. More- 
over, the decay of this monarchy of Spain, once so powerful, and 
still so vast and proud, had already made alarming progress. An 
evil government ere long renders useless the finest climate or the 
richest soil, and the neglect of commerce and agriculture speedily 
inflicts its own punishment. The only two classes which seemed 
to prosper under the Castilian Crown were the beggars and the 
monks,f — unless, indeed, these two classes be comprehended as 
one ! Even gold was wanting to the masters of Peru and 
Mexico ! Their chivalrous spirit, their science of war, all 
seemed buried at Rocroy and Lens with their veteran battalions, 
and through the blows of Conde himself. The officers appointed 
by the Court intrigues at Madrid were for the most part too 
ignorant to command, and too proud to obey. 

To add to their difficulties, they had been so long accustomed 
to hear the praises of Charles V. resounding, and were so im- 
pressed with the former grandeur of their country, that they 
sought only to conceal its weakness, and exaggerate its resources 
— even to themselves and their chiefs ; so that they were almost 
always concerting new operations upon erroneous reports. 

* Memoirs of the Prince of Tarente, p. 129, ed. 1767. 
f Desormeaux, vol. iii., p. 401. 



242 LIFE OF COND£. [chap. x. 

With these constantly recurring difficulties, it was the month 
of July ere Conde could penetrate into France at the head of 
27,000 troops, composed of Spaniards, Germans, Italians, Lor' 
miners, Walloons, and French refugees. Turenne had a very 
inferior army to oppose to them. But discord was not long in 
breaking out between Conde and Fuensaldana. The former 
wished to march straight to Paris, — the latter confined his views 
to the siege of Arras. At last Conde carried his point, and the 
army marched as far as Rove ; but then Fuensaldana refused 
to venture any further, on the pretext that he feared a want of 
provisions. The Prince, now become indignant, wished to de- 
cide the campaign by a single battle, which, from the superiority 
of his army, promised success ; but in vain did Conde exert all 
the powers of his genius : Turenne, with his usual foresight and 
caution, never placed himself in a position to be attacked. 

The arrival of the Archduke at the camp only served to in- 
crease the discord and disorder. A dispute upon priority of 
rank immediately arose between him and Conde : neither chose 
to go to the other's quarters to receive the order of the day. It 
became necessary to refer the point to Philip IV. ; and affairs 
remained in suspense until the Court of Madrid adopted the plan 
of sending to the camp a tablet, on which was inscribed before- 
hand the word of command for each day of the month. Fuen- 
saldana carried this tablet to each of the Princes in turn, who 
were thus supposed to receive orders from none but the King 
himself. The descendant and heir of Conde, and the last who 
bore his name, thinks his ancestor's firmness upon this question 
of precedence one of the greatest actions of his life! " What 
" courage, and what magnanimity ! " cried he : " to conquer this 
" same Archduke in action, was the part of only a hero ; but to 
" withstand him under such circumstances, was indeed worthy 
" of a great man and a Prince ! " * 

The season was, however, advancing, and the invasion of 
Picardy had failed. Conde then contented himself with pro- 
posing the siege of Rocroy, which he intended to use as his 
place d'armes, and which, according to the terms of a treaty which 
he had signed at Brussels, was to continue in his own hands. 

* Essay on the Life of the Great Conde, p. 141. 



1653.] HIS RETURN TO ROCROY. 243 

The Archduke not only approved of the enterprise, but left 
its entire management to the Prince. Thus it happened that 
Conde found himself returning to the field of Rocroy, where 
ten years before he had gathered his first laurels. With what 
emotion must he have beheld those narrow defiles which himself 
had first opened to victory — those dark fir forests which encir- 
cled, like a black frame, the marshy and uncultivated plain, where 
the redoubtable Tercios, the pride and hope of Spain, came and 
succumbed before a stripling of twenty ! That tree, under whose 
shade he had reposed — yonder steeple, from which the Te Deum 
of victory had pealed — that cottage, where he had stepped in to 
indite, his hand all tremulous with joy, his first despatch ! Who 
amongst us has not himself felt the influences of his first return 
to the home of his youth ? How does everything look less than 
we imagined ! How the mansion of our youth appears to have 
shrunk to a cottage ! — the river to a streamlet ! How many of 
our nearly effaced recollections crowd upon our softened mind ! 
The years that have passed glide away. The mind is renewed ; 
every object around us speaks of some bygone friendship — of some 
disappointed hope. We fancy ourselves again as we were when 
eagerly panting for an active life, without foreseeing its dan- 
gers, or regretting the calm and tranquil existence which we left 
behind — that tranquillity which we may regret, but which never 
will return ! But how much more forcibly must these same senti- 
ments have struck Conde, and with what feelings of bitterness 
must he have again beheld the same scenes under such altered 
circumstances ! A rebel against that King whose throne he had 
formerly strengthened — an ally of that Spain which he had for- 
merly humbled and defeated ! Every object which met his eye 
seemed to reproach him silently, but severely : for — as Tacitus 
so eloquently says — the aspect of places does not vary for Sove- 
reigns, like the faces of their flatterers ! * 

It was perhaps such a train of reflections and feelings of remorse 
that caused, or at least increased, the illness with which Conde 
was seized immediately on his arrival before Rocroy. We will 
here quote the Memoirs of the Prince of Tarente : — " The day 

* " Quia tamen ncn ut hominum vultus, ita locorum facies mutantur, 
" obversabaturque maris illius et litorum gravis aspectus." — Tacit. Annul., 
lib. xiv., c. 10. 



244 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. x. 

" that the trenches were opened the Prince fell ill of a quartan 
" fever, of which the fits became so long and violent, that he was 
" obliged to keep his bed during the whole of the siege. He 
" entrusted me with the conduct of the attack ; I gave it my best 
" exertions." * And, indeed, notwithstanding several sallies of 
the besieged, and torrents of rain which completely filled the 
trenches, the town was reduced, and capitulated on the twenty- 
second day from the opening of the works. " Three of the 
" principal officers of the Prince," says De Tarente, " claimed 
" the government of Rocroy. Some one having told the Prince 
" that I also was amongst the claimants, though I had never 
" even thought of it, he replied sharply, that he should retain 
" the government for himself, and that the disagreement of his 
" officers obliged him to act in this manner. He afterwards 
" caused me to be informed by Saint Ibal, that if he had taken 
" two places he should have given me one, to make up to me for 
" the loss of Taillebourg ; but that having only Rocroy, on the 
u resources of which he entirely depended for subsistence, he did 
" not venture to propose to me to be the Governor, and return 
" the profits. That if, however, I would accept it on those con- 
(i ditions, he would cause the patent to be drawn. I replied, 
u that I had no claim to that government, and that I quite un- 
" derstood his reasons for wishing to retain it, and enjoy its 

u revenue The Prince's indisposition detained 

" him at Rocroy, and I commanded his army. I saw it reduced 
" to a most deplorable state : two- thirds of the cavalry, without 
" excepting even the officers, were on foot. The soldiers wanted 
" everything, and I was not able to assist them in their utmost 
" need. My situation became so painful, that I resolved to 
" throw up everything rather than see a whole army perish in my 
" hands." f 

Accordingly, De Tarente asked leave to retire from the Prince, 
who granted it with great regret, and protestations of eternal 
friendship. De Tarente set off for the Hague, and soon after re- 
ceived permission to return to France. The Duke de la Roche- 
foucauld and several other friends of Conde whom he had left 
in his native country, came at the same time and in the same 
manner to terms with the Court. 

* Memoirs of the Prince of Tarente, p. 158. f lb., P- 1C4r - 



1653.] PROCEEDINGS AT BORDEAUX, 245 

In Burgundy, Guyenne, and all the rest of the kingdom, the 
partisans of Conde who wished still to maintain themselves had 
been overpowered. Bellegarde, the only place in Burgundy 
which still held out, had been confided by the Prince to the 
Count de Boutteville, who became afterwards so famous under 
the name of the Marechal de Luxembourg. He defended him- 
self heroically during a six months' blockade, and six weeks 
of open trenches, and finally obtained an honourable capitulation, 
which enabled him to rejoin the Prince with his garrison in the 
Low Countries. The fortress was razed to the ground by order 
of the Court, and the whole province submitted to the Royal 
authority. 

At Bordeaux the incapacity of the Prince of Conti, and the 
misconduct of Madame de Longueville, more and more offended 
the minds already incensed by the excesses of the Ormee. This 
faction, under the secret influence of the Prince and the Duchess, 
and the open management of a brigand named Duretete, became 
daily more outrageous, sacking houses, and ill-using the inhabi- 
tants. Many of the first magistrates were compelled to leave the 
town and retire, some to Agen, and others to La Eeole, to which 
place the King had transferred their Parliament. In vain did 
the Princess of Conde, supported by the counsels of Lenet and 
Marsin, endeavour to soothe their feelings and to re-establish 
affairs. Herself almost in a dying state, she had had the an- 
guish of losing her second son at the age of eight months, and 
nearly at the same time her uncle, the old Archbishop of Lyons, 
expired in his diocese : this was the last surviving kinsman of 
Clemence. 

Meanwhile, however, the King's return to Paris was disposing 
the people of Guyenne to peace, and gave to the Court the means 
of sending troops into that province. At the same moment were 
to be seen the Duke de Vendome with a French fleet entering 
the Gironde (from whence Yatteville and his frigates had already 
sailed), and the Duke de Candale approaching at the head of an 
army by land. Bazas, Langon, Bergerac, and many other towns 
threw open their gates to him ; and Bourg, which was garrisoned 
by Spaniards, yielded after a siege of several days. Then it was 
that all those who had taken up arms for interested motives or 
mere thoughtless love of strife, hastened to leave the losing party. 



246 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. x. 

The Count du Dognon consented to relinquish his fortresses for 
the sake of a baton de Marechal, which was granted to him. The 
Prince of Conti commenced one negotiation, the Duchess de 
Longueville another, and two Franciscans, named Father Ithier 
and Father Berthod, served as mediators ; * but with the base- 
ness belonging to low minds, " the Prince of Conti not daring 
" to inform the Princess of Conde that he wished for peace, nor 
" yet Marsin or Lenet, as being so firmly attached to the Prince 
" of Conde's interests, held counsel with them as to the means of 
" preventing, while he was secretly promoting it." "j* At last, 
notwithstanding all the efforts of Marsin and Lenet, the desire 
for peace prevailed. Nearly everybody in the town adopted 
the white scarf, and the colour Isabelle dared not show itself. 
Peace was signed with public rejoicings on the 31st of July. By 
this treaty the inhabitants of Bordeaux obtained the re-establish- 
ment of their privileges, with a full pardon for their rebellion, 
excepting only Duretete and five other chiefs of the Ormee, 
who were afterwards hanged. The Prince of Conti, whose 
confidants Mazarin had succeeded in gaining over, determined to 
abandon entirely the interests of his brother, and attach himself 
to those of the Minister. Accordingly, he not only consented 
to serve under him in several employments with which he was 
intrusted, but also married one of the Cardinal's nieces. We 
are assured that the news of this alliance was more painful to 
Conde than any of his other misfortunes. Thus it was that the 
crafty Mazarin, who had begun life as a menial servant at 
Rome, had the honour of mingling his blood with that of Kings. 
Thus had already become accomplished the prediction which 
Conde made at Montrond, when he exclaimed to his brother 
and sister, "It is you who have persuaded me to take this step, 
" it is you who will be the first to forsake me ! "J 

On leaving Bordeaux the Duchess de Longueville had ob- 
tained the promise that a reconciliation between her and her 
husband should be attempted. It was not a very easy un- 
dertaking, since there were not a few things for the Duke to 
forget or to forgive ; however, after some time the reunion 

* See the Memoirs of Berthod, at the end of those by Conrart. 

f Memoirs of Montglat, vol. iv., p. 16. 

% Life of the Duchess de Longueville, book v., ed. 1738. 



1653.] THE PRINCESS EMBARKS FOR FLANDERS. 247 

was effected. During this interval she went to reside with her 
aunt, the Duchess de Montmorency, at Moulins. There it was 
that a great and happy change took place in her character. In 
the society of her aunt, one of the most pious women of her time, 
she was imbued with profound sentiments of religion, and a lively 
repentance of her past life. These good dispositions were never 
changed. They continued on her return to her husband in Nor- 
mandy, and for the remaining twenty -seven years of her life, the 
whole of France was edified by her piety and her repentance.* 

Ever constant to her duty the Princess of Conde continued to 
act with the most lofty courage, combined with the most touch- 
ing gentleness. She refused every advantage offered by Ma- 
zarin to the niece of Cardinal de Eichelieu, his first benefactor, 
on condition that she should remain in France, and separate her 
interests from those of her husband, j She preferred, on the con- 
trary, sacrificing everything to go and rejoin him. 

It had been stipulated in the treaty that Marsin and Lenet 
should embark for Flanders with the young Duke d'Enghien ; 
that the Princess might remain some time longer in a country 
house, to recruit her strength ; and that then a passport should 
be given her to make her journey by land. But Clemence would 
never consent to be separated from her son, the only happiness 
she had left. Her physicians assured her that she would die 
on the passage ; she persisted, however, in embarking, after 
having received the Sacrament, like a person at the point of 
death.J All her resources had been spent in the war for the 
service of her husband. She was obliged to pawn her diamonds 
to defray the expenses of her voyage. § In spite of the prognos- 
tic of the physicians, her energy and courage stood her in lieu of 
strength, and she landed safely on the Flemish coast. After 
all that she had done and suffered for the interests of Conde, she 
might perhaps have hoped to receive from him some proofs of his 
regard, or at least of his respect. But it did not prove so. 
Conde occupied himself with warfare in the summer and with 
amours in winter quarters, and would not be interrupted in either 

* Life of the Duchess de Longueville, book v., ed, 1738. 
f Desormeaux, vol. iv., p. 266. 
X Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. iii., p. 428. 
§ Desormeaux, vol. iii., p. 428. 



248 LIFE OF CONDfi. [chap. x. 

of these pursuits. He sent word, therefore, with much harshness 
to the Princess, who was going to join him at Rocroy, to stop at 
Valenciennes, and await his arrival. During the whole winter he 
never once deigned to visit her ; and soon after he deprived her 
of her only remaining consolation — the presence of her son, whom 
he sent to the Jesuits' College at Namur, to pursue his studies. 
In France, where the people appreciated the merit of the Prin- 
cess much more than Conde seemed to do, his conduct was thought 
strange at least, if not culpable. Guy Patin, in one of his letters 
of that time, exclaims with surprise, " The Princess of Conde is 
" at Valenciennes ; she has not yet seen her husband since her 
" arrival in Flanders !'■* 

It is about this period Bishop Burnet declares that Conde 
offered his services to Cromwell, with a promise to turn Pro- 
testant, provided he obtained an English army with which to make 
a descent into Guyenne, and raise a rebellion amongst the Hu- 
guenot party in France. f But such an offer, resting only upon 
the authority of a writer so prejudiced and passionate as Bishop 
Burnet, can hardly be admitted without any historical document 
for its support. 

The campaign of 1654 commenced inauspiciously for Conde, 
by the loss of his town of Stenay, which was besieged by Turenne. 
During this time the Prince had to contend at Brussels against 
the slowness of Fuensaldana, and the freaks and caprices of the 
Duke of Lorraine. One day, for instance, the Duke declared 
that he would not commence the campaign unless a certain 
bourgeoise of Brussels, of whom he had become enamoured, came 
and asked him to do so ! The whole Council had to go in pro- 
cession to the parents of the girl, to persuade her to take such a 
step. At last the Duke succeeded in tiring out the patience of 
the Spaniards themselves, who caused him to be arrested and 
conveyed to the citadel of Antwerp. 

By the end of June, Conde, having at length succeeded in 
putting the Spanish army in motion, appeared before Arras, on 
whose siege he had determined. The first care of the besiegers was 
to construct lines round the town, and Conde left nothing undone 
which could render them impregnable. They were twelve feet 

* Letter of Guy Patin to C. Spon, Paris, March 20, 1654. | 
f Burnet's History of his own Times, vol. i., p. 72, ed. in folio. 



1654.] LINES OF ARRAS FORCED. 249 

in width and ten in depth. However, at the very first alarm of 
the danger which threatened this important town, the bulwark 
of the frontier, Turenne hurried to the spot at the head of a 
numerous army, and having under his orders the Marechals 
d'Hocquincourt and La Ferte. The young Duke of York (after- 
wards King James II.) also served under him as a volunteer. 
During more than a fortnight Turenne remained uncertain of 
what part he should take. The lines were already so strong that 
it appeared difficult to attack them, and yet if they were no!" 
attacked Arras would be forced to surrender. 

At last, on the morning of the 24th of August, Turenne an- 
nounced to his officers that he had resolved on attacking- that 
very day at noon a particular part of the lines, which he pointed 
out to them. The officers observed to him that the lines on the 
opposite side appeared very much weaker. " That is true/' re- 
plied Turenne, " but you do not know who keeps that weak line. 
We should do no good there ; Monsieur le Prince never sleeps, 
I and that is his post. But now I will tell you what will fall 
I out on the other side ; for I have served in the Spanish armies ? 
I and know their customs. The soldiers on guard in that quar- 
ter will be slow in believing that we really mean to attack 
them at that time of day, and will for a long time fancy that 
it is only a false alarm. When at length they are convinced 
" that we are in earnest, they will send to the Count de Fuen- 
" saldaiia, who at that hour is sure to be enjoying his siesta^ 
| and it will not be an easy matter to persuade his servants 
| to awake him. When at last awake, the Count will mount 
I his horse, and go to see what is doing at the lines; which 
f when he sees he will hasten to the Archduke, whom he will 
r also find asleep in his tent. Having in his turn roused him, 
" they will consult together what is best to be done, and 
" during that time," added Turenne, " we shall have done !" 
The attack was accordingly commenced in this quarter; and 
they learnt afterwards, through the prisoners, that everything had 
passed exactly as was predicted by Turenne. The lines were 
forced and the Spaniards routed almost without a struggle, and 
with the loss of all their guns, baggage, and three thousand men. 
Conde alone made a stout resistance. At the very first alarm he 
hastened with his division of the army to the other side of the 



250 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. x. 

lines. He tried to rally the vanquished, and for two hours kept 
the enemy in check. At length he slowly recrossed the Scarpe 
within sight of the enemy, and covered the retreat of the Spanish 
army until they gained the walls of Cambray.* 

This masterly retreat increased the reputation of the Prince 
almost as much as the gain of a battle. The King of Spain 
wrote him a note with his own hand in these words :— " My 
" cousin, I am informed that all was lost, but that all was saved 
" by your Highness ! " 

During the following winter-quarters, Queen Christina of 
Sweden, who had just abdicated her throne, and who for a long 
time past had been filled with admiration for Conde, made a jour- 
ney through Brussels expressly to see and make acquaintance 
with her hero. The Prince on his side was flattered by these 
proofs of esteem, and was anxious to return them. Who would 
have believed that with this anxiety on both their parts, a foolish 
ceremonial, a frivolous dispute on etiquette, should have pre- 
vented their meeting or seeing each other ? One day, however, 
on which Christina held an assembly, the Prince, curious to see so 
renowned a woman, quietly slipped into her apartment amongst 
the crowd of courtiers. The Queen recognised the Prince by his 
features ; she uttered an exclamation of joy, and rising, rushed 
towards him, wishing to retain and converse with him. But the 
recollection of the ceremonial that was denied him already flashed 
across the mind of the hero, and he broke away, exclaiming, 
" Everything or nothing, Madam !" and with these words disap- 
peared. | 

In the campaign of 1655, the incapacity of the Spanish chiefs 
constantly reduced Conde to the melancholy part of being the 
spectator of the successes of Turenne. The French army suc- 
ceeded in taking one after the other the towns of Landrecies, 
Conde, and Saint Guillain. 

The weakness of the Archduke and the Count de Fuensal- 

* All these details are taken from Clarendon's History, vol. vii., p. 282, 
Oxford, 1826. 

f Memoirs on Queen Christina, by Arckenholtz, vol. i., p. 453. The 
Queen writes herself in one of her letters from Brussels : — " Here I find 
" myself well with every one except the Prince of Conde. My occupations 
* consist in eating well, sleeping well, studying a little, &c, &c." (lb. p. 
474.) 



1656.] SIEGE OF VALENCIENNES RAISED. 251 

dana — a weakness which showed itself in a still clearer light by- 
being contrasted with the genius of Conde — at 'last, however, at- 
tracted the attention of the Court of Spain. They were recalled 
in the following winter, and in their place arrived Don John of 
Austria, the son of King Philip and of an actress of Madrid, a 
young man full of ardour and love of glory, almost without edu- 
cation, and as yet without experience ; and at his side the Mar- 
quis de Caracena, a veteran, grown grey in the service, but a true 
Spaniard in slowness and phlegm. 

It was against these new chiefs that Turenne, rendered bolder 
by the successes of the last campaign, moved at the head of 
his army, and came to besiege Valenciennes in June, 1656, in 
concert with another division under the command of the Mare- 
chal de la Ferte. The Princess of Conde had already left that 
town, and fixed her abode at Malines, according to the orders of 
her husband, who neglected and deserted her more than ever. 
Valenciennes, surrounded by good fortifications, and holding a 
numerous garrison, was well defended by its governor, Don Fran- 
cisco de Menesses. The place was however almost compelled to 
surrender, when Conde made a great effort for its deliverance. 
He saw that the French army occupied the two banks of the 
Scheldt — La Ferte's division on one side, and Turenne's on the 
other. He saw, too, that by opening the sluices of Bouchain, 
he could overflow the banks of the river, and render the 
communications difficult. Joining his forces to those of Don 
John, he fell upon the camp of La Ferte during the night, with 
such secrecy and vigour, that he gained a complete victory. 
The Marechal de la Ferte himself fell into the hands of Conde, 
with nearly all his generals, four hundred officers, and more than 
four thousand soldiers. Of all this division of the army only two 
thousand men escaped, throwing away their arms, and running 
away in disorder. This was one of the most felicitous and daring 
acts of the Prince's life. Turenne would, perhaps, ere long have 
shared the lot of his colleague, had not the irresolution of Don 
John paralysed Conde's ardour, and given to the French Marshal 
two days to perform a skilful retreat, which he made step by step 
with his face turned towards the enemy. By another well-com- 
bined attack the Prince invested the town of Conde, from which 
he took his name, and compelled it to capitulate. 



252 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. x. 

Indeed it was only from Conde* that could be learnt all the worth 
of Turenne, and from Turenne all the worth of Conde. " It was," 
says Bossuet, " a noble sight in our age to see at the same time 
' and in the same campaign those two men, whom the voice of 
' Europe had proclaimed equal to the greatest captains of past 
' centuries, sometimes at the head each of his separate division — 
' sometimes more united from the concurrence of their thoughts 
1 than from the orders of the superior to his inferior officer — 
6 sometimes opposed face to face, each redoubling in vigilance 
i and activity. What campaigns, what laborious marches, what 
' precautions, what perils, what resources ! Were the same vir- 
' tues ever before seen in two men of such different, not to say 
' opposite, characters ? One seemed to act upon deep reflection ; 
■' the other upon sudden impulse and flashes of light. The one 
' therefore more fiery — not that his ardour partook of precipi- 
' tation ; the other, with a colder manner, but with nothing of 
slowness — more daring in actions than words, inwardly reso- 
lute and determined, even when he looked most embarrassed. 
The one giving at his first appearance in an army a great idea 
' of his valour, and raising an expectation of extraordinary acts, 
' but always advancing cautiously and with order, and coming 
' as it were by degrees to the prodigies which ended his career ; 
' the other, like a man inspired from his very first battle, equalling 
' the most consummate masters of war. What a spectacle to see 
' and study these two men, and learn from each of them all the 
' esteem which the other deserved !"* 

Spain, already about to succumb from her own weakness, 
found herself again aimed at by new enemies. An alliance, of- 
fensive and defensive, had just been concluded against her between 
France and England — between Cardinal Mazarin and the usurper 
Cromwell. Charles Stuart, the lawful King, and his two brothers, 
being thus driven from France, sought an asylum in the Low 
Countries. They were received with great coldness by the Go- 
vernor, Don John, and by the Marquis de Caracena. It was 
Conde who, by his generous efforts, caused Charles to receive 
the treatment due to a King, and who gave commissions in his 
army to the young Dukes of York and Gloucester. About the* 

* Bossuet, Oraison Funebre, p. 78, ed. 1807. See also the parallel of 
Conde and Turenne, by St. Evremond. 






1657.] THE DUKE OF YOKK. 253 

same time Conde was receiving at Brussels the visit of the chief 
of an opposite party in France, now united to him by the bonds 
of their common misfortune, and by their hatred of Mazarin. 
This was Cardinal de Retz, who, having been transferred from 
Vincennes to the Chateau of Nantes, had effected his escape so 
early as the year 1654. He had then passed into Spain and Italy, 
and was at length come to the Low Countries to combine mea- 
sures with his former enemy.* 

The campaign of 1657, like the preceding ones, was marked 
by sieges rather than by battles. Turenne had formed the design 
of surprising and taking Cambray : Conde, at the head of three 
hundred horse only, forced him to retire. The Governor and in- 
habitants of the town thus freed from danger, received the Prince, 
on his entry, upon their knees in the streets ; and soon after 
they caused a gold medal to be struck, bearing this inscription, 

"VlRGINI SACRUM ET CONDAEO LlBERATORI." 

On the other hand, the Prince failed in an attempt to make him- 
self master of Calais. The slowness of Don John and Caracena 
everywhere obstructed the best projects, and lost the fairest 
opportunities. Let me give one single instance. Towards the end 
of this campaign the French army were besieging St. Venant : to 
save the town it became necessary to intercept the convoys of 
provisions which were coming to Turenne. One of these convoys 
had left Bethune in the morning, composed of five hundred wag- 
gons, and escorted by only three squadrons. It was discovered 
about four o'clock in the afternoon by the Duke of York, who was 
conducting a column of infantry. The Duke immediately went 
to the Prince de Ligne, who commanded five squadrons, and ex- 
horted him to fall upon the enemy. " I shall take good care not," 
replied De Ligne ; " it is as much as my head is worth to engage 
" in an action without having received the order from Don John." 
Don John and the Marquis of Caracena were sent to. Both of 
them lay stretched at full length in their coaches, tranquilly 
enjoying their siesta. They were surrounded by a troop of ser- 
vants, who were occupied only in keeping aloof all disturbance 
and importunate inquirers from their masters. None of them 
would take upon himself to wake them. The convoy passed, and 
the two Generals after their slumber showed no regret. The 

* See the Memoirs of Guy Joli. 

s 



254 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. x. 

Duke of York, however, expressed his astonishment to the Prince 
of Conde. " Ah ! you do not know the Spaniards," replied the 
Prince ; " to see defects in war, you must serve a campaign with 
" them !"* 

It was, perhaps, in allusion to all these lost opportunities that 
Conde about this period adopted as a device upon his standards 
a great flame crackling amongst wood, with these words : — 
" Splendescam, da materiam !" 

Worn out by sorrow and mortification, he fell dangerously 
ill at Brussels. At this news Anne of Austria hastened to send 
him the celebrated physician Guenaud,f in whom Conde had 
especial confidence, and the health of the Prince was re-esta- 
blished before the spring. 

To comprehend clearly the sinking state of the old Spanish 
monarchy at this period, the incapacity of its chiefs, and the 
indolence of its people, and consequently to form a correct idea 
of all the obstacles which were perpetually presenting themselves 
to Conde during his campaigns against his fatherland, we may 
consult the Marechal de Grammont, who, being sent to Madrid 
in 1659, on an embassy of ceremony, has left in his Memoirs, 
edited by his son, some very curious and little known details on 
the state of things in that capital. He is a witness who appears 
equally truthful and well informed. According to him, " This 
" nation in general is proud, arrogant, and indolent. Valour 
" is natural to it, and I have often heard the great Conde* ob- 
" serve, that a courageous Spaniard has even a loftier valour 
" than other men. Patience in labour and constancy in adver- 
" sity are virtues possessed to the highest degree by the Spaniards. 
■" Even the common soldiers are seldom dispirited at any unfor- 
" tunate event — which they attribute to some distant cause, often 
" even beyond probability — and console themselves by the hope 
" of a speedy return of their good fortune. Thus we frequently 
" heard it said by most of the prisoners who were taken, that 
" the King of Spain had reason to rejoice in the revolts of Por- 
" tugal and Catalonia, because when these provinces came to be 
" subdued by the force of arms (which must undoubtedly happen), 

* Memoirs of the Duke of York, and Desormeaux, Hist. vol. iv., p. 109. 
f The same who is mentioned in the 6th Satire of Boileau : — 
" Gnenaud sur son cheval, en passant m'eclabousse V 



1658.] THE SPANISH COURT. 255 

" their privileges would be abolished, and the King, in becoming 
" their absolute master, would draw from them an enormous re- 

" venue, which would assist him in making fresh conquests 

" As to genius, one sees few Spaniards who have not a lively 

" and agreeable wit in conversation Their fidelity to their 

R King is extreme, and highly to be praised Great 

f poverty exists amongst them, which proceeds from their ex- 
" treme indolence ; for if numbers of our Frenchmen did not 
"go to mow their hay, reap their corn, and make their bricks, 
" I think they would run great risk of dying of hunger, or of 
" living under tents, to save themselves the trouble of building 

" houses As to the Grandees of Spain of the first class, 

" the only employment for which they seem to care is that of 
" Gentlemen of the Bedchamber in Waiting, because while they 
" are in attendance upon the King at table, and dressing or un- 
" dressing him, they enjoy the privilege of seeing his Majesty, 
" from which honour all others are excluded. The contempt in 
" which these gentlemen hold all those who go to the wars, or 
" who have been there, is scarcely to be believed. I have seen 
" Don Francisco de Menesses, who had so valorously defended 
" Valenciennes against Turenne, not known at Madrid while 
" we were there, and not allowed to pay his respects to the King 
" or to the Admiral of Castille ; and it was the Marechal de Gram- 
" mont who presented him to the Admiral at his own house — the 
" Admiral having never before heard of Don Francisco de Me- 
" nesses, or of the raising of the siege of Valenciennes — a cir- 
" cumstance of some singularity ! And it is remarkable that in 
" that vast empire, the number of all those who, at the period of 
" which I am speaking, could command an army, was reduced 
u to Don John of Austria, who was a very moderate captain, to 
" the Conde de Fuensaldaiia, who did not understand war, and 
" did not love it, to the Marquis of Caracena, and to the Conde 
" de Mortara, who was, if possible, more incapable than the other 
" two. . . . The ignorance of these Spanish Grandees in the 
" questions they ask, is sometimes so surprising, that one cannot 
" help laughing, and really deserves that I should give some in- 
" stances of it here. The Pope's Nuncio conversing one day 
" with the Count de Grammont at Madrid, told him that the news 
" of a victory gained by the Venetians over the Turks had just 

s 2 



256 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. x. 

" come ; on which a Spanish Grandee asked him in perfect 
" good faith, 'Quien era Virey a VeneziaV (Who was Viceroy 
" at Venice?) To this the other replied with some humour, that 
" he had better ask that of the Venetian Ambassador, who was 
" close by ; from which he, however, fortunately abstained, for it 
" is pretty certain that he would have received such an answer 
" as the absurdity of the question deserved. As for me, having 
" always heard much of those great men who had taken part in 
" the government of that monarchy under the reigns of Ferdi- 
cs nand, Charles V., and Philip II., I had imagined that the sons 
" had inherited some of the talents of their fathers ; and I was 
41 listening one day with a predisposition to admire what I should 
u hear said by the Duke of Alva, a good and worthy gentleman, 
" but one of the most illiterate in the world. He being unfor- 
" tunately engaged in telling a story of his grandfather, who had 
" been Governor «of the Low Countries, and caused their complete 
" revolt, could never remember the name of the Prince of Orange, 
" which was necessary to his narrative, and got out of the diffi- 
" culty by always calling him < El Eebelde I ' " (The Rebel).* 

At the commencement of the year 1658, Cromwell exacted 
from Mazarin that he should send orders for the siege of Dunkirk, 
so that the French might afterwards give up the place into 
his hands ; and threatening, in case of refusal, to turn his arms 
against France and conquer Calais with the assistance of the 
Spaniards. The answer of the supple Cardinal may be guessed : 
so early as the month of May Dunkirk was invested by the army 
of Marshal Turenne, and blockaded by an English fleet, with 
several thousand soldiers under the direction of their Ambassador 
Lockhart. Having been apprised, though rather late, of the 
projects of the enemy, Don John and the Prince of Conde de- 
parted in all haste from Brussels without waiting for their artil- 
lery and baggage. On arriving w r ithin sight of the Downs, Don 
John called together a council of war to deliberate upon the 
means of saving the town. Conde* maintained that there was but 
one course to take ; to encamp between the canals of Furnes and 
Hundscotte, to await in this post, where it would be impossible 
for Turenne to attack them, their artillery, and the rest of their 

* Memoirs of the Marechal de Grammont, by his son the Duke de Gram- 
mont, vol. ii., p. 252 — 270, ed. 1716. 



1658.] BATTLE OF THE DOWNS. 257 

forces, and meanwhile to harass the enemy and cut off their 
foraging parties. Don John proposed, on the contrary, to ad- 
vance between the Downs, as near as possible to the French lines. 
$ But," said the Prince to him, " we shall hardly be engaged 
If amongst those banks of sand ere the enemy will leave their 
" camp and attack us. And they will have great advantages 
<c over us : the post which you wish to occupy is only favourable 
" to the infantry ; and the French is the most numerous and 
" warlike." — " But I," replied Don John haughtily, and quoting 
the events at Valenciennes, "I am persuaded that they will 
" not even dare to look at the army of his Catholic Majesty ! " 
— " Ah !" answered Conde, " you do not know M. de Turenne ; 
" faults are not committed with impunity before so great a 
r man." Don John was silenced, but persisted in his plan, and 
resolved as General-in-chief to have it carried into execution. 

Accordingly on the next day, the 14th of June, the Spanish 
army ventured on the Downs along the coast ; it was about 
14,000 strong. Turenne on his side had 22,000 men; but he 
left 6,000 to guard the lines before Dunkirk; and advanced 
with the others to profit by the error of the Spaniards and 
give them battle. Conde was the first to see the movement of 
the French : he advanced at full gallop to reconnaitre their 
order and their plans, and then immediately went to apprize Don 
John. The confidence of the Spanish General did not forsake 
him : he maintained to the Prince that Turenne could have no 
other project than to skirmish with their advanced guard. With- 
out making any further objection Conde turned to the young Duke 
of Gloucester and asked him if he had ever yet seen a battle ? — 
" No," replied the Duke. — " Well then," continued Conde, " in 
f half an hour from this time you will see one lost !" * 

The illusive hope of the Spanish chiefs was not long in being 
dissipated ; they saw the French army advancing upon their front 
in order of battle, while the English frigates were pressing to 
cannonade their right wing along the coast. The English sol- 
diers stepping ashore, were the first to climb upon the Downs and 
commence the attack. Three times repelled, three times did they 
return to the charge with renewed ardour and extreme animosity. 
On seeing them, Don John exclaimed that the French fought 

* Ramsay, History of Turenne, vol. ii., p. 89. Desormeaux, vol. iv., p. 133* 



258 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. x. 

like men, but the English like devils. He himself, and the 
Marquis de Caracena, gave an example of the most brilliant 
valour, pushing into the thickest of the fight, and contesting the 
battle spear in hand. But the defect of their first position so 
embarrassed the movements of their cavalry as to render it 
almost useless, while their infantry, beset on every side, by the 
French in front, by the English on their flank, was soon com- 
pelled to yield, and take to flight. 

Conde commanded on the left wing. He saw that his allies 
would be beaten, but he had formed a project worthy of his 
genius : it was to open for himself a passage to Dunkirk, through 
the centre of the French camp opposite to him, and through the 
lines of their intrenchments, and thus relieve the besieged town, 
even in the very midst of a lost battle. Little was wanting to 
his success in this design. But he soon found himself surrounded 
by fresh troops which were coming from the centre of the French 
army. He was on the point of being taken, and his horse was 
killed under him ; but a gentleman of his household instantly 
gave up his ow r n to him ; two others, the Counts of Boutteville 
and Coligny, sacrificed themselves to favour his retreat ; and 
while lie escaped amidst a shower of musketry, his devoted 
friends remained prisoners in the hands of the enemy. 

This disaster, which received the name of the Battle of the 
Downs, cost the Spaniards nearly 4000 men, taken, killed, or 
wounded. It drew along with it the loss of Dunkirk, which 
capitulated ten days after. But it may also be said of this battle, 
that it was one of the principal causes of the treaty between the 
two nations, which terminated a twenty -four years' w r ar. The 
Spaniards, thoroughly humbled, submitted to concessions which 
were henceforward inevitable. The French, now victorious, 
relaxed upon several points, in the hope of an alliance between 
their young Monarch and the Infanta Maria Theresa, eldest 
daughter of King Philip. It was upon this basis that Don Louis 
de Haro, prime minister of Spain, and Cardinal Mazarin, prime 
minister of France, had an interview in the Isle of Pheasants, on 
the Bidassoa, and succeeded in concluding " the Peace of the 
" Pyrenees." 

The detail of these celebrated conferences would lead us too 
far. Let us confine ourselves to our subject, and let me only say 



1659.] PEACE OF THE PYRENEES. 259 

that in this negotiation the interests of Conde were more diffi- 
cult to regulate than those of Europe. Don Louis thought with 
reason, that the honour of his country was involved in obtaining 
good conditions for his French allies; and Lenet having ar- 
rived at Irun, provided with instructions from Brussels, closely 
watched the interests of his master. The first proposal for the 
complete and unconditional re-establishment of the Prince and 
his partisans in all their places and employments was at once 
cast aside by Mazarin. " What !" cried Don Louis, " do you 
f wish that a Prince of his merit should return to France with- 
" out reputation, office, or government ? and how do you expect 
" him to live?" To this question the Cardinal replied bluntly, 
" Let him live like five hundred other Princes of the Blood, who, 
" without having ever dreamt of doing any thing against their 
" King or their country, never had any government or place. 
" The greater number of Princes only desire them for evil pur- 
" poses, and it is good policy to give them none. For if they 
" only wish to receive marks of respect from all Frenchmen, as 
" well as to secure their own safety, they have only to live 
" quietly and duly serve the King — as they are even more bound 
f to do than all his other subjects."* Don Louis then declared 
that the Catholic King would be obliged himself to do some- 
thing considerable for the Prince, in yielding to him either the 
Duchy of Luxembourg, or Sardinia, or Calabria, and making it 
an independent sovereignty. 

The Cardinal at first appeared to agree to this proposal ; but 
later he declared that his King would never consent that a re- 
compense should be given to the Prince, which w r ould only serve 
to become a monument of his rebellion to posterity.t 

Several times in the following conferences Don Louis re- 
turned to the charge in favour of Conde ; but was never able to 
shake the Cardinal's determination. On his side, the Prince, 
informed of these differences, generously wrote to Don Louis and 
to Lenet, that he did not wish that the fairest regions of Europe 
should be any longer the scene of devastation out of regard for 

* Despatch from Cardinal Mazarin to M. Le Tellier, August 21, 1659. All 
the letters of Mazarin, which concern the Peace of the Pyrenees, hare been 
published in two volumes at Amsterdam, in 1693: it is a very interesting 
collection. 

f Despatch of Cardinal Mazarin, August 23, 1659. 



260 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. x. 

his interests ; that he was besides weary and ashamed of disput- 
ing the ground any longer with his King ; and that he preferred 
submitting without conditions, to being the cause of prolonging 
the war. Don Louis communicated this letter to Mazarin. Then 
addressing him, he said, " As my master is not allowed to give 
" places to his ally, we must give some to the Christian King, to 
" engage him to restore his favour to the first Prince of his 
" Blood. For this object I offer Avesnes and all its depen- 
" dencies." At the offer of this important fortress, Mazarin no 
longer resisted. Eight articles in relation to Conde* were added 
to the general treaty, and signed the 7th of November, 1659. As 
to the style, they were drawn, not, as had been demanded by 
Spain, upon a footing of equality between the King and the Prince, 
but in the tone of an offended master and a guilty subject. 

These articles enacted that the Prince should be reinstated in 
all his honours, in all his estates, and in his government of Bur- 
gundy ; that the King should restore to him his favour ; that he 
might be permitted to receive from Spain a million of dollars 
without counting the arrears which were due to him ; that the 
Duke d'Enghien should have the place of Grand Master, with the 
brevet of reversion for his father ; that all the partisans of Conde* 
who had followed him out of France (excepting only Count de 
Marsin) should have their estates restored to them, but not their 
offices. On the other hand, the King of Spain ceded Avesnes to 
France, and Juliers to the Elector Palatine. The Prince of 
Conde* engaged to disband his troops, to renounce his foreign 
alliances, and to restore to the King the places of Rocroy, Le 
Catelet, Hesdin, and Linchamp, of which he still continued to 
hold possession. He engaged not to rebuild the fortifications of 
Bellegarde or Montrond. Another separate and secret article 
obliged him to give up Chantilly to the King, provided that he 
should receive compensation for its value. 

Such were the conditions which at length reopened the gates 
of his country to this illustrious rebel. " It would have been 
" worth while," says a panegyrist, " to give up towns to recover 
" such a man, and Mazarin had the happiness and the skill to 
" obtain some on that very condition !" * 

* Desormeaux, vol. iv., p. 161. 



1660.] HIS RETURN TO FRANCE. 261 



CHAPTER XL 

First interview between Conde and Louis XIV. — Absolute power of Mazarin 
— His death at Vincennes — Retreat of Conde to Chantilly — His Son's 
marriage — Death of Anne of Austria — Mysterious event at the Hotel de 
Conde' — Accusation against the Princess — Its validity examined — She is 
sent a prisoner to Chateauroux — Rabutin and Duval. 

As soon as Conde had received tidings of the conclusion of 
the treaty, he prepared to return to France. He left Brussels 
accompanied by the Marquis de Caracena, who insisted on escort- 
ing him a league out of the town, and regretted by all the inha- 
bitants of the Low Countries, who always continued to feel the 
greatest veneration for him. He would not go by Paris, as he did 
not wish to appear in public before he had paid his respects to 
the King ; having therefore taken the road by Soissons, he went 
to see the Duke and Duchess de Longueville at the Chateau of 
Coulomiers, where he reposed for some days. The young Duke, 
his son, travelled in the same coach with him ; the Princess, his 
wife, arrived two days after him at Coulomiers. From thence 
Conde proceeded with Longueville to Provence, where the 
Court was then residing ; but hurried as he was, he could not 
refrain going out of his way to see the Duchess de Chatillon. 
He would not receive on his route any compliments or harangues 
in any of the towns through which he passed. At Valence he 
found the Prince of Conti, whom he welcomed with tenderness, 
as he also had the Duchess de Longueville ; at last he arrived 
at Aix, on the 28th of January, 1660. Cardinal Mazarin had 
come two leagues to meet him ; the Prince was compelled to 
dissemble his resentment, embrace his former enemy, and enter 
the same coach with him, giving him for the first time the right 
side as the post of honour while driving into the town. They 
alighted together at the residence of the King, who was awaiting 
them alone in his own chamber with the Queen his mother, 
Conde immediately threw himself on one knee before the King, 



262 LIFE OF COND& [chap. xi. 

and asked forgiveness for the part he had taken against his Ma- 
jesty's service. The King, holding himself very upright, re- 
plied coldly, " My Cousin, after the great services you have 
" rendered to my Crown, I shall never remember the error 
" which has been hurtful only to yourself." 

We find in the Memoirs of those times " that on the following 
" day the Cardinal entertained him at dinner ; and that after 
" having staid some days with the Court, where he cut rather a 
" bad figure, he left it to go to Paris, where he had not been for 
" eight years. On his return he consented to receive the compli- 
" ments of the towns, because he had seen the King ; and thence- 
" forward he determined to live privately without taking part 
" in anything, and to have a complete and entire complaisance 
" and docility for the Court and its favourites."* This resolu- 
tion of the Prince was really sincere, and always persevered in ; 
he refused constantly to mix himself in any intrigue against the 
Minister of the day, and during the rest of his life Louis XIV. 
had no subject more faithful, no courtier more devoted, than this 
former chief of the Fronde. 

It was with these feelings that Conde, having first paid a short 
visit to his government of Burgundy, came to meet the King as his 
Majesty was returning from the south of France, and presented 
to him his son. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who was then at 
Court, gives some details of this second interview, and of the 
person of the Duke d'Enghien : — " We were at the Chateau de 
" Chambord. The Prince brought there Monsieur le Due, his 
" son, of whose talents much had been said while he was yet a 
" child in Flanders. His appearance was not conformable to 
" the expectations which had been raised by the flatterers of the 
" Prince ; he seemed to us to be a little boy neither ill nor well 
" made — not handsome, and nothing in his air which would lead 
" one to recognise in him a Prince of the Blood. Everybody 
" wished to please the Prince, his father, and so they pretended to 
" admire him. His father brought him to my apartment, and 
" during the time that I was engaged in discussing my affairs 
" with Monsieur le Prince, he fell asleep, which I thought ex- 
" traordinary." f This will appear perhaps less extraordinary to 

* Memoirs of Montglat, vol. iv., p. 235. 
f Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. v., p. 159, ed. 1776. 



1660.] CAKDINAL MAZARIN DIES. 263 

those who read the very long and tiresome details on her affairs 
with which Mademoiselle indulges us in her Memoirs. 

The submission of the Prince, the sincerity of his intentions, 
and the recollection of his former services, were not long in pro- 
curing him a good reception at Court. But he had not a shadow 
of influence ; he saw the authority of the state passed more 
entirely than ever into the hands of Mazarin. That skilful Mi- 
nister had become in reality more a King than the King himself. 
Here is the testimony upon this point of a general officer, who was 
also " Grand Master of the Robes," the Marquis de Montglat : 
" The Cardinal never came to the King, but the King went 
" several times a-day to the Cardinal, to whom he paid court 
" like a common courtier. He received the King without any 
" constraint ; hardly rose when his Majesty entered or retired, 
" and never conducted him out of his apartment. When the 
" King granted any favour without speaking to him upon it, he 
" reprimanded him like a schoolboy, and told him that he did 
" not understand those things. When he was ill, the Queen 
iC went to see him every day as he lay in his bed, and remained 
? a long time. He treated her as if she had been a chamber- 
" maid, and whenever they told him she was coming up stairs 
P to see him, he would knit his brows, and say in his jargon, 
" ' Ah ! that woman will kill me, she is so troublesome ; will 
" she never give me any repose ? ' " * 

Death only could terminate the ministry, or rather t.]m reign 
of Mazarin. He was only fifty-eight years of age ; but fats con- 
stitution was already undermined by the excesses of his youth, 
and by the toils of his riper years. During the whole of the 
winter of 1660 his health was seen to be decaying; in the month 
of February following he wished to try a change of air, and 
caused himself to be removed to the Chateau of Yincennes. 
But however great his weakness, he continued to labour and to 
govern till his last breath. Like Richelieu, he contemplated his 
approaching end with a firm and intrepid eye ; he himself dis- 
posed of the employments which would become vacant by his 
death, and regulated the affairs of the state by will, as he might 
have done his own. Like Tiberius, his dissimulation survived his 

* Memoirs of Montglat, vol. iv., p. 253. 



264 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xi. 

strength, and endured as long as his life.* Three days before 
his death he saw the Prince of Conde, and conversed with him 
a long time, and very affectionately ; but the Prince discovered 
afterwards that he had not told him one word of truth If At 
length he expired on the 9th of March, 1661. 

This event is connected with one of the most singular enigmas 
presented to us by history — the Iron Mask. It was Voltaire 
who first made known to the public how, several months after 
the death of Cardinal Mazarin, an unknown prisoner was sent 
in great secrecy to the fortress of Pignerol — a prisoner young, 
and above the middle height, but wearing constantly on his face 
a mask of black velvet with steel springs — how, having been 
transferred first to the island of St. Margaret, and afterwards to 
the Bastille, he died a prisoner, and unknown, in 1703.$ Since 
that time many writers have exhausted themselves in conjectures 
to clear up this mystery. The best dissertation upon the subject 
appears to me to be that of the late Mr. Crawford, in his ' Me- 
i langes d*Histoire et de Litter ature / which was printed at Paris 
in 1817, but never published. Having first passed in review all 
the other conjectures, and rejected them by strong arguments 
one after the other, he concludes that the prisoner must have 
been a son of Anne of Austria. May I be allowed to add that 
after having read with care all the documents, and weighed all 
the circumstances, I have no doubt upon that point. I believe 
(however little my judgment may be worth) that the prisoner 
was the son of the Queen and Mazarin, and born after the death 
of Louis XIII. ; that he was secretly brought up until the death 
of the Cardinal ; that Louis XIV., on assuming the reins of 
government, was informed of the mystery ; and that then it was 
judged necessary to remove from all eyes the unfortunate young 
man, whose personal resemblance either to the Queen or to 
Louis XIV. himself might be dangerously striking. 

After the death of the Cardinal, it was thought that some other 
statesman would take his place, and Conde might with reason 
aspire to the post. Then it was that Louis XIV. astonished 

* Jam Tiberium corpus, jam vires, nondum dissimulatio deserebat. (Tacit. 
Annal., lib. vi., c. 50.) 

t I derive this curious fact from some historical fragments among the 
works of Racine. 

% Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. and Philosophical Dictionary. 



1661.] HIS KETKEAT TO CHANTILLY. 265 

France by his resolution to govern it himself, and that when his 
courtiers asked him, " To whom shall we address ourselves ?" he 
answered, " To me !" This resolution was maintained, although 
the King often intrusted all the mere details to the Ministers 
whom the Cardinal in dying had bequeathed to him — to Fouquet, 
Le Tellier, and Lyonne. Thus Conde, not being able to hold a 
place in affairs, and not wishing to hold any in faction, resigned 
himself to a tranquil and indolent life, and retired to Chantilly. 
He was much attached to this residence, and amused himself by 
improving it. His possession of it was, however, uncertain. 
Louis XIV. already had hinted his wish to acquire this fine 
domain, and alleged the right over it which the Peace of the 
Pyrenees had reserved to him. " Sire," said Conde, " you are 
" the master — but I have a favour to ask of your Majesty ; it is 
p to leave me at Chantilly as your bailiff!" The King under- 
stood the meaning of this answer, and had the generosity to sa- 
crifice his own taste to that of Conde. 

Conde's retreat furnishes but few materials to his history. He 
had a tender affection for his only son, and occupied himself first 
with his education, and afterwards with his marriage. Notwith- 
standing the great disproportion of their ages, he meditated mar- 
rying him to that rich cousin who had formerly been destined 
for himself. Here is what is said by the cousin herself — namely, 
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, in her Memoirs : — " The ardent 
" wish which the Duke d'Enghien felt for this marriage was ex- 
" pressed to me ; I excused myself on the ground of the great 
" disparity of age between myself and the Duke. The Duke 
r was very assiduous in his attentions to me, but I saw so little 
" merit in him, and his demeanour was so strange towards those 
" with whom he lived, that I took hardly any notice of him. 
M His character was very variable, both as regarded his pleasures 
" and his more . serious affairs ; and though he has been said to 
" possess knowledge and to show talent, yet a base mind can 
" never please." * Besides, this pretty child had grown up an ill- 
favoured man. Here is the portrait drawn of him by the Duke 
de St. Simon many years after : — " He was a little man, very 
" thin and tiny, whose countenance, though somewhat mean, was 
11 still imposing from the fire and spirit of his eyes." f 

* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. v., p. 233. 
t Memoirs of St. Simon, vol. vii., p. 117, ed. 1829. 



266 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xi. 

It, however, rested only with Conde to make his son marry an- 
other grand-daughter of Henri Quatre, Mademoiselle d'Alengon, 
a younger sister of Mademoiselle de Montpensier. According to 
the latter the Princess of Conde ardently wished for this mar- 
riage ; but the Prince preferred Anne of Bavaria, the daughter 
of that Princess Palatine of whom so much has been said during 
the wars of the Fronde. The King and Queen of Poland had 
adopted this young Princess, and had settled upon her several 
Duchies in Silesia, valued at more than a million of crowns. 
The marriage took place in December, 1663. Unfortunately this 
great and rich alliance increased still more the disdain which the 
Prince already felt for the unhappy niece of Richelieu. We find 
in the Memoirs of that period, " The Princess of Conde had 
cc always been contemned since the death of Cardinal Richelieu ; 
" the ill treatment she suffered redoubled after the marriage of 
" Monsieur le Due, and she was reduced to seeing nobody."* 

The Duchess d'Enghien was scarcely more happy than her 
mother-in-law. According to the Duke de St. Simon, who drew 
her portrait thirty years later, " She was the continual victim of 
" her husband ; she was equally plain, virtuous, and foolish. Her 
" sweetness and her submission were never sufficient to shield her 
" from his frequent insults, or his blows of foot or fist, which 
" were by no means rare."f 

In 1666 the gout, of which Conde had already felt some symp- 
toms, attacked him with violence, and long detained him at 
Chantilly. He had the resolution to confine his diet almost en- 
tirely to milk ; and this regimen preserved his life, and even his 
vigour, for yet twenty years. J 

This same year died Anne of Austria, the Queen Dowager, 
Conde's former enemy. Then Louis XIV., freed from a re- 
straint he had always respected, determined to take advantage 
once more of the weakness of Spain. King Philip had left 
his State in decay, and his successor in his cradle. In 1667 
Louis darted upon the Low Countries at the head of fifty 
thousand men. But it was Turenne whom he chose for the 
instrument of his success ; while Conde, languishing at Chan- 

* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. vi., p. 237. 

f Memoirs of St. Simon, vol. vii., p. 121, ed. 1829. 

J Desormeaux, vol. iv., p. 208. 



1668.] INTRIGUES FOR THE CROWN OF POLAND. 267 

tilly, was condemned to the worst of all torments for an ardent 
mind — inaction. All that he was able to obtain was the per- 
mission for his son to serve under the King. Under these cir- 
cumstances, without allowing himself to be discouraged, the 
Prince secretly applied himself to drawing up a plan for the 
conquest of Franche Comte. This project was referred to the 
Marquis de Louvois, Minister-at-War, who, already jealous of 
Turenne, felt that it was Conde only whom he could oppose to 
that chief. He caused the project to be approved by his Majesty ; 
and its execution to be confided to the Prince himself. 

This great General hoped to take the people of Franche 
Comte by surprise, in the heart of winter. He first proceeded 
to Dijon under the pretext of there convening the States of his 
government of Burgundy ; and marched his troops in small de- 
tachments and without noise to the frontier. On the 4th of Sep- 
tember, 1668, he entered Franche Comte ; on the 7th he was 
already received at Besangon, the capital of the province. Dole, 
where the Parliament was sitting, made more resistance : it was 
before this town that the King joined the army ; and his pre- 
sence determined the inhabitants to capitulate. Conde immedi- 
ately appeared in person before the town of Gray, and sent to 
invest the Chateau of Joux, on the frontiers of Switzerland, 
where had retired the Marquis de Yenne, the Spanish Governor. 
The cowardice of this officer, and the treachery of Abbe de 
Watteville, soon made subject to France these fortresses and the 
rest of the country. There were but fourteen days' interval 
between its invasion and its conquest.* The same courier an- 
nounced the two pieces of news at the same time to the Spanish 
Council at Brussels. Louis immediately gave to Conde the 
government of the province he had conquered, but the Triple 
Alliance was already forming, by the care of Sir William 
Temple, between England, Sweden, and Holland, and the Grand 
Monarque was soon forced to consent to peace, retaining his 
conquests in the Low Countries, but restoring Franche Comte 
to the Spaniards. 

Towards the close of these transactions Casimir, King of 
Poland, having abdicated his elective Crown, several candidates 
were thought of to replace him : amongst others the Prince 
* Historical Essay by Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde', p. 170. 



268 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xi. 

of Conde. Warsaw was agitated by thousands of opposite in- 
trigues — by thousands of various sentiments. It was then there 
appeared a Memoir against the Prince ; a Memoir which con- 
tains a foundation of truth beneath a web of calumnies. Here 
is an extract from this work : — " Troy has existed, but her 
" glory and her splendour have disappeared. Conde, worn out 
" by the excesses of his youth, and the devouring fire of his pas- 
" sions, even more than by the hand of time and the toils of 
" war, is now only the shadow of his former self. A prey to 
" the gout, with weakened nerves, having no more elasticity in 
" mind than in body, he is painfully dragged about from place 
" to place, like a vain phantom of his departed glory. If the 
" nearly extinct vigour of his body — if the decaying fire of his 
" genius— should ever revive, it will only be to establish the 
" despotism and the customs of his native country in Poland ; 
" and to bow the Sarmatian chivalry under French discipline." 
In short, this libel denies him every merit beyond genius in 
war. " If he has been," thus it proceeds, u another Mars 1 
" battle, he has never in council been inspired by Minerva." 

Notwithstanding these accusations, Conde's party in the Diei 
would have, perhaps, prevailed, but the policy of Louis XIY. in 
his foreign alliances and his projects for the conquest of Holland 
might have been fettered by this election. " My cousin," said 
he to Conde, " think no more of the Crown of Poland ; the in- 
" terest of my kingdom is concerned in it." It became neces- 
sary to submit to this supreme decree without further question. 

Unsuccessful ambition was not the sole torment which the 
Prince had to endure ; he had also to suffer from the embar- 
rassment of his fortune. He was already much in debt in con- 
sequence of the civil wars, when he returned to France. Since 
then, not being well skilled in money matters, he had given him- 
self up without a struggle to the peculation of his domestics, and 
to the usury of his intendants. His debts amounted to more 
than nine millions of livres. It was nearly six years since his 
family expenses had been paid. Then it was that Gourville, 
that old and faithful servant, of whom I have already had oc- 
casion to speak, undertook at his request to unravel this confusion. 
Conde gave the management of his household, without making 
any reserve or restriction, to Gourville, who by his zeal and ability 



n 

: 

n 



1671.] HIS CREDITORS. 269 

fully justified this mark of confidence. Robbery and fraud must 
indeed have been carried to a great extreme, since the new ad- 
ministrator found means of liquidating the nine millions of debt 
with fifteen hundred thousand livres ; " and I had the satisfac- 
K tion," says Gourville, " of always being warmly thanked by 
" those persons with whom I had to deal ! " * Gourville recol- 
lected also the considerable arrears still due to the Prince by 
Spain. To urge a claim for these old arrears so soon after the con- 
quest of Franche Comte by the creditor, appeared very difficult, 
and perhaps not very delicate : however, Conde determined upon 
it, and Gourville set off to Madrid. He found the affairs of the 
King of Spain still more embarrassed than those of his master ; 
nevertheless he set so many springs in motion, and so oppor- 
tunely worked upon the Castilian Pundonor, that he was able 
to return with thirty thousand pistoles of ready money, and 
assignations upon some woods and fiefs in Flanders. As may 
be supposed, these sums were very far from useless in the liqui- 
dation of the debts at Paris. Let us here use the words of Gour- 
ville himself: — " The Prince often found himself encumbered 
"by a great number of creditors in his ante-chamber, when he 
" wished to go out. He usually leant upon two persons, not 
" being able to walk alone, and passing through the crowd of 
" creditors as quickly as possible, used to tell them that he would 
¥ give orders that they should be paid. He did me the honour 
" to say to me afterwards that one of the things that had given 
" him the greatest pleasure in this world was when he perceived, 
" some time after I had the direction of his affairs, that he found 
" no more creditors in his ante-room."f Notwithstanding these 
services, or rather in consequence of these services, Gourville 
found himself beset with enmity and envy. The Bishop of 
Autun, amongst others, adroitly accused him to Conde of boast- 
ing that he governed his Highness ; but Conde did not fall into 
this snare. " Sir," replied he coldly, " if the fact be so, it must 
" be acknowledged that he governs me well I" 

We are now arrived at the most mysterious and fatal event 

in Conde's life. Let us carefully collect the testimonies and 

endeavour to weigh them well. In the first place, this is the 

manner in which it is spoken of by Mademoiselle, who was then 

* Memoirs of Gourville, vol. ii., p. 131 t lb., p. 115. 

T 



270 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xr. 

at Court: — "A terrible adventure occurred at the house of 
11 Monsieur le Prince. A young man who had been one of the 
" footmen of the Princess, and to whom she had been accus- 
" tomed to make some largesses, entered her chamber one day 
" to ask for money. His demand was urged in such a manner 
tc as led to the belief that he had a desire to take the money 
" himself, or oblige her to give it hiim A young gentleman 
" who had lately been a page to Monsieur le Due began a 
<k quarrel with the other, either because he took him to be a 
" thief, or because he was indignant at his failing in respect to 
M the Princess: in short, the reason was not known, but they 
" drew swords against each other. The Princess wishing to 
" separate them received a sword-cut. The noise which this 
" caused drew into the chamber many persons ; the footman and 

" the page both made their escape The former was taken 

" in the town, and was brought to trial ; and when the Princess 
" had recovered, the Prince sent her as a prisoner to Chateau- 
" roux, which is one of his houses." * 

Count de Bussy Rabutin, so well known from his satirical 
writings and from the mortifications which they drew upon him, 
gives another turn to this affair ; the more readily, since the 
page in question was his cousin, and like himself bore the name 
of Rabutin. Thus therefore in the Supplement to his Memoirs, 
Bussy thinks fit to tell us that the Princess of Conde had given 
herself up not only to Rabutin her page, but also to Duval her 
footman ; and that it was upon the subject of her favours, and 
from jealousy, that the quarrel arose between Rabutin and Du- 
val, t Such was in fact the suspicion which Conde had, or pre- 
tended to have, and on which he adopted the resolution of 
banishing the Princess to Chateauroux. 

But how is it possible to think that the suspicion of the Prince 
was well founded ? How can we believe that a Princess married 
nearly thirty years, and up to this time entirely free from the 
slightest imputation — always held sacred by calumny, which 

* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. vi., p. 237. 

t Third part of the Supplement, p. 89. Note to Sevigne's Letters, vol. L, 
p. 184, ed. 1806. See also, in the edition of 1823, a letter from Madame de 
Sevigne herself, which was suppressed in the previous editions. This letter 
is dated January 23, 1671, and repeats the first rumours which were current 
upon this affair. 



1671.] ACCUSATION AGAINST THE PRINCESS. 271 

spares so few — ever irreproachable in the midst of a most cor- 
rupted Court — could have waited till the age when passions have 
subsided, to indulge them? How reconcile such irregularities 
with that exalted piety which she had practised from her youth 
upwards ? * How can we, without any proof, admit such accu- 
sations against the woman who had always devoted herself so 
courageously and constantly to the service of a husband who 
slighted her ? against the heroine of Montrond and Bordeaux ? 
against Clemence de Maille ? And again, what accusation ? 
Not only of an illicit attachment, but the shameless sharing of 
her favours between two of her own domestics ! 

Thus, I think, did the public judge of it at Paris. The source 
of these suspicions was generally thought to arise from the Prince's 
animosity and from the avarice of Monsieur le Due. Made- 
moiselle asserts that u Monsieur le Due was accused of having 
" counselled the Prince in the treatment which the Princess his 
" mother received. He was glad, it was said, to have found a 
" pretext for sending her to a place where she would spend less 
" than in the world." It is easy to see what the Duke de St. 
Simon thought of this affair by two words which he applies to the 
Duke d'Enghien in drawing his portrait many years later — 
" that unnatural son."f And the opinion which prevailed in 
that brilliant circle in which Madame de Sevigne shone is to be 
traced from a postscript by Corbinelli on the last moments of 
Conde : — " The death of the Prince has edified every body, and 
" all of you, no doubt, like ourselves ; but I could have wished 
" that he had given some signs of life to the public in behalf of 
" his wife !" J 

But the strongest testimony of all is borne by the descendant of 
Conde himself, who acknowledges with regret that his illustrious 
grandsire " was only seeking some favourable opportunity for 
" separating from his wife — a project which he had long enter- 
tained.^ 
It would appear, moreover, that at a later period Conde was 

* Even in 1 648 we find that the Princess of Conde often went to pass 
some time in devotion at the Convent of Carmelites at Paris. (Memoirs 
of Montpensier, vol. i., p. 196.) 

f Memoirs by St. Simon, vol. vii., p. 118, ed. 1829. 

X Letters of Madame de Sevigne, vol. viii., p. 12, ed. 1806. 

§ Historical Essay by Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde, p. 173, ed. 1807. 

T2 



272 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xt. 

compelled, either by public opinion or his own conscience, to 
give up his first accusation. At least his panegyrist assures us 
that the real cause of the Princess's imprisonment was that she 
was mad. " Some derangement of the brain was perceived. The 
" complete solitude to which she had abandoned herself had 

" increased her illness Conde seized this opportunity of 

" withdrawing his wife from the prying and audacious eye of 
" the public."* It is only necessary to observe that this expla- 
nation appears a little too late, and that at the period of these 
events no trace of this pretended madness can be found. On the 
contrary, the Princess's health, which had to contend for many 
years against severe bodily illness and mental grief, appeared to 
be then nearly re-established. This proved a great misfortune 
to Clemence. Her sufferings were the longer ! 

Such was the opinion which I had already formed of this 
question, when I accidentally discovered some new documents 
which bear upon it. I found in the State Paper Office that the 
Court of London maintained at that period at the Court of Paris 
a trusty and secret correspondent, who wrote from day to day 
every thing which seemed worthy of remark. No source could 
possibly be more authentic, or less subject to partiality ; and it 
is therefore with entire confidence as to their good faith, though 
not, perhaps, as to every circumstance which they record, that I 
offer the following extracts, according to their dates: — 

" Paris, January 16, 1671. 
" On Tuesday evening, about five o'clock, the Princess of 
" Conde being then alone in her chamber, the brother of one of 
" the Prince's footmen, named Duval, entered, and demanded 
" the payment of some pensions, which she had been accustomed 
" to allow him without the knowledge of his Highness. Where- 
" upon this Princess ordered him to retire, saying that she had 
" no more money to give him, having heard that he made a bad 
" use of it. On this Duval replied, ' Then, Madam, give me 
" your diamond brooch.' At which demand she screamed. Then 
" Duval struck her three times with a sword in her right breast, 
6i double locked the door, and escaped to the Luxembourg. 
'* But a page having heard the groans of the Princess, imme- 

* Desormeaux, vol. iv., pp. 26G, 267. 



1671.] THE PRINCESS SENT TO PRISON. 273 

" diately caused her to receive assistance, without which she 
" would have bled to death. The wounds are not mortal. The 
" Prince, on being informed of this sad news, testified the most 
" vehement displeasure, and caused the brother of the villain to 
" be arrested ; and though very ill with the gout at Chantilly, 
" was conveyed here yesterday in a litter to examine him. 
" About four o'clock on Wednesday the criminal himself was 
" taken in the court of the Luxembourg palace, and was led, 
" with his hands tied behind his back, to the Hotel de Conde 
" by the servants of that House, all holding drawn swords in 
" their hands. Nevertheless, this generous Princess, from a 
" spirit of piety and charity, has tried to save his life, by pre- 
" tending that the outrage which had been committed upon her 
" had been only occasioned by her own efforts to separate him 
" from one of her pages, against whom he was about to draw 
" his sword in her ante-chamber. Their Majesties and all the 
" Court, who went to visit the Princess, expressed the greatest 
" pain at this sinister event." 

" Paris , January 20, 1671. 

" The Bailli of St. Germain des Pres has three times interro- 
" gated the criminal Duval ; and as they were about to put him 
" to the rack he confessed his crime, acknowledging that it was 
" he who had wounded the Princess. She perseveres in trying 
" to save his life ; but the Prince is determined he shall die, as 
" he says that the consequences might be dangerous if he were 
" not made an example of." 

" Paris, February 6, 1671. 

" Monsieur le Prince, who is again at Chantilly, having caused 
" the King to be told that he would never set his foot in Paris 
" while the Princess his wife was there, his Majesty on Wednesday 
" sent a lettre de cachet to that Princess, desiring her to with- 
" draw immediately from the Court and city." 

" Paris, February 13, 1671. 
" The King sends Madame la Princesse de Conde to Chateauroux 
" in Berry for the rest of her days, at which she is inconsolable. ,, 

" Paris, February 20, 1671. 
" Yesterday the Princess of Conde left this city for Chateauroux 



274 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xi. 

" in Berry. Before her departure she sent for the Cure of St. Sul- 
" pice, with whom she held a conversation upon spiritual matters, 
" saying to him, ' Sir, this is the last time that you will speak 
" to me, as I shall never return from the place where the King 
ki now sends me. But the confession which I now make to you 
" will proclaim my innocence for ever :' — and then she bade him 
" farewell." 

" Paris, February 24, 1671. 
" The King and the Prince obliged the Princess, before her 
" departure for Chateauroux, to give up to her son all her pro- 
" perty, which consists of upwards of a hundred thousand crowns 
" of income free from debts, this Princess not having been able to 
" reserve for herself anything but a very moderate pension, of 
" which she three times repeated that she should not long have 
" the use, as she was then treading the path to the grave. She 
" swooned away in the arms of the Duke, her son, in bidding 
" him adieu." 

No resource was left to the Princess. Her father, her mother, 
her brother were dead, and her son had forsaken her : there 
was no kindred left for Clemence. It was thus that she had to 
pass that same river Loire as a prisoner, which she had twice in 
her youth crossed in arms for the service of her husband ! It was 
thus that she was again to see the hills which encircle Mont- 
rond ! It was thus that a fantastic turn of fortune gave her for 
her prison that same dungeon of Chateauroux which Anne of 
Austria had already assigned for her in her letter to Chantilly 
twenty years before ! She had now to enter that living tomb. 
" She has been detained a long time in close confinement," says 
Mademoiselle, " and now she is only allowed the liberty of 
" walking up and down in the court, always guarded by persons 
" placed about her by the Prince."* The ancient castle in which 
she was confined was built in 940 by Raoul " Le Large" that 
is, the Generous — and gives its name to the town of Chateauroux. 
It still exists in these days — " perched upon a hill from which its 
" towers command the course of the Indre."j" From the sum- 
mit of that Donjon, from the depth of those gloomy casements, 

* Memoirs of Montpensier, vol. vi., p. 238. 
t Memoirs of a Tourist (M. Beyle), vol. i., p. 317. Brussels edition, 1838. 



1671.] DEATH OF LENET. 275 

the eyes of Clemence (for her eyes alone still retained their 
liberty) must often have sadly contemplated the open country 
which surrounds the town, or still further perceived, perhaps, 
without being able to enjoy, " the most lovely scenes of meadows 
" and islets formed by the windings of the Indre and planted 
" with the finest trees."* What smothered sighs ! what unavail- 
ing regrets during these long years ! how many prayers heard by 
God alone ! 

Let us say one word before we conclude upon the two domestics 
whose quarrel formed the pretext of her misfortunes. Eabutin 
escaped to Germany, where later he made his fortune by marry- 
ing a Princess of Hohenzollern. Duval was condemned to the 
galleys, and he was conveyed in chains to Marseilles with the 
other prisoners, f 

Let us add also, that the former adviser of the Princess during 
the civil wars, the faithful Lenet, died in July of this same year. 
In losing him, Clemence lost, probably, her last remaining sup- 
port. 

* George Sand, Valentine, vol. i., p. 87. 

t Letters of Madame de Sevigne, of April 10, 1671; and another by 
Dr. Guy Patin, of the 18th of March (or probably rather of the 18th of 
February), of the same year, 



276 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xii. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Visit of Louis XIV. at Chantilly — Tragic fate of Vatel — Conde takes part 
in the campaign of Holland — His Nephew the Duke de Longueville 
killed — Conde himself wounded — He returns to France — His campaign 
in 1674 against the Prince of Orange — Battle of Seneff— Conde commands 
on the Ehine after the death of Turenne — His final retirement at Chantilly 
— His affection for his Son — His taste for gardening — Embellishment of 
Chantilly — Illness of his Daughter-in-law, the Duchess de Bourbon — 
Conde hastens to rejoin her at Fontainebleau — His own illness and death 
— His last injunction with respect to the Princess — She dies in Prison 
eight years after him — Her Grave rifled in 1793 — Conclusion. 

Only a few weeks after the catastrophe of which we have been 
speaking, the Chateau de Chantilly resounded with fetes and re- 
joicings. Louis XIV. had deigned to go and visit his cousin. 
He was received with magnificence joined with good taste ; and 
Monsieur le Due, who had a great talent for decorations and 
pastimes, surpassed himself upon this occasion. But the joy was 
troubled by a fatal accident — the death of Vatel, Maitre d'Hotel 
to the Prince. Here is the account given of it by Madame de 
Sevigne : — " The King arrived at Chantilly on Thursday even- 
" ing ; the promenade, and the collation served in spots carpeted 
" with jonquils — all this went off perfectly. They supped : there 
" were several tables at which the roast was wanting, in conse- 
" quence of more dinners being required than had been expected. 
" This had a great effect upon Vatel. He exclaimed several 
" times, ' My honour is gone ! Here is an affront which I cannot 
" bear !' He said to Gourville, ' My. head swims ; for twelve 
" nights I have not slept ; pray assist me in giving the orders.' 
" Gourville consoled him as well as he could. The roast which 
" had been wanting, not at the King's table, but at the twenty- 
" fifth, was always recurring to his thoughts. Gourville informed 
" Monsieur le Prince of his state of mind. Monsieur le Prince 
" went as far as VatePs own chamber, and said to him, i Vatel, 
" all is going on well : nothing could be finer than the King's 
" supper. 5 l Monseigneur ' replied he, s your kindness over- 



1672.] LOUIS XIV. AT CHANTILLY. 277 

" powers me. I know that the roast was wanting at two of the 
" tables.' ' Not at all,' said the Prince ; i all is going on per- 
" fectly well ; do not distress yourself.' Midnight comes. The 
" fireworks did not succeed ; they are covered by a cloud ; they 
" cost sixteen thousand francs. At four o'clock in the morning 
Y Yatel goes about everywhere ; he finds every one asleep ; he 
" meets a little boy who is bringing two loads of sea -fish ; he 
" inquires of him, c Is this all ?' ' Yes, sir,' replied the other, 
" not knowing that Yatel had sent to all the sea-port towns. 
" Yatel waits some time ; the other purveyors do not come ; 
" he becomes wildly excited ; he thinks that there will be no 
" farther supply ; he finds Gourville, and says to him, ' Sir, I 
" shall never survive this affront.' Gourville laughs at him. 
" Vatel goes up to his room, places his sword against the door, 
" and runs it through his heart ; but it was only at the third 
" stroke, for he gave himself two which were not mortal ; he 
" falls to the ground dead. The sea-fish, however, arrives from 
" all sides ; Yatel is wanted to distribute it ; they go to his 
" room ; they knock ; they break open the door ; they find him 
" bathed in his own blood ; they rush to the Prince, who is in 

" despair He mentions it mournfully to the King ; they 

P say it is to be attributed to too high a sense of honour, accord - 
" ing to his views ; they applaud his character ; some praise 
" and others blame his courage." * 

Wherever the King passed on this journey he was received 
with enthusiasm : illuminations at all the windows, and salutes 
of guns. Times were much changed since the Fronde. At 
Yitry, for example, the inhabitants tore from the church where 
his Majesty was to hear Mass, the tomb of one of their Governors 
who had taken part with the League. They did not choose that 
the King should see in their church the epitaph and name of a 
rebel ! + 

The following year Louis XIY. declared war against Holland, 
without deigning to explain his motive. In truth, there was no 
other than his own ambition. He took the field himself, at the 
head of a hundred thousand men. With him marched Conde 

* Letters of Madame de Sevigne, of April 26, 1671. See also Gourville, 
Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 119. 

t Historical Fragments by Racine. 



278 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xir. 

and Turenne. The Prince had been consulted upon this expe- 
dition : he considered the passage of the rivers to be the greatest 
obstacle. His reply at this time to a visionary who offered to 
teach him the secret of making gold is well known. " My 
" friend," said he, " I thank you; but if you know of any 
" invention for making us cross the Issel without our being 
" knocked on the head, you would give me great pleasure, for 
" I know of none ! " * 

The French army, however, undertook four sieges at a time : 
those of Wesel, Orsoy, Rheinberg, and Burick. Monsieur le 
Prince was intrusted with the conduct of the former. Having 
first made himself master of every important post around the 
town, several ladies of rank, alarmed at the consequences of a 
general assault, sent to ask the Prince for a passport to retire 
into Holland ; but Conde answered them harshly, that he should 
take care not to deprive himself of the greatest ornaments in his 
expected triumph. In fact we are assured that the fears and the 
cries of those ladies, on finding themselves shut up in the town, 
contributed greatly towards the capitulation of the garrison three 
days after. The other three besieged places having surrendered, 
Louis XIV. gave up the passage of the Issel, which was defended 
by the Prince of Orange, and determined upon attempting the 
passage of the Rhine. This project was crowned with the most 
complete success. Conde exhibited, as usual, the highest degree 
of ability and courage. " The Prince is represented to us," says 
Madame de Sevigne, " as he sat in his boat, giving his orders 
" with that God-like valour and coolness which we know him to 
" possess." f But this day, though brilliant, was unfortunate for 
him. His left wrist was shattered by a musket-ball, and he had 
the grief of seeing perish by his side his nephew, the young 
Duke de Longueville, the last hope of that illustrious family. 
Suffering at the same time from bodily pain and mental anguish, 
Conde let himself be lifted from his horse into a barn ; and had 
the body of Longueville placed beside him, covered with a cloak. 
He thought of the grief of his sister at the loss of an only son, 
aged only twenty-one years ; and his affliction was still further 
increased, when, on that very same evening, he saw arrive an 

* Letters of Madame de Sevigne, of April 27, 1672. 
f Letter of June 17, 1672. 



1674.] CAMPAIGN IN HOLLAND. 279 

envoy from Poland, who came to offer the Crown of that king- 
dom to the young Duke — a striking instance how close together 
may be the pinnacle and the precipice of all human hopes ! * 

The Prince's wound prevented his taking any further part in 
this campaign. He was carried first to Emmerick, and from 
thence to Utrecht, to assist the King with his counsels. As soon 
as he could bear the movement of a coach, he set off to Chan- 
tilly, travelling only by easy stages ; but by degrees, with time 
and repose, his wound was cured. 

It is well known how, on the verge of its ruin, Holland was 
saved by the haughtiness of Louis XI Y. in refusing all proposals 
for peace, by his impatience to return to Versailles in the midst 
of the campaign, but above all by the heroic firmness of the 
young Prince of Orange. — The following year the King set on 
foot three armies, and confided to Conde the command of the 
one destined to contend with the Dutch and their new chief, the 
worthy heir of the Nassaus. The immoderate ambition of Louis 
XIY. had already, however, raised up against him some new 
enemies. The Emperor and the King of Spain declared war 
against him. Conde was obliged to abandon his conquests, and 
return to the French frontier ; while the Prince of Orange, 
quitting his morasses and entering the Low Countries, joined his 
troops to those of the Count de Monterey, the Spanish Governor. 

In 1674, Conde commanded once more upon the Flemish 
frontier. He encamped upon the heights of Pieton, two leagues 
from Charleroy, with an army of forty-five thousand men. When 
joined to the Spaniards, the Prince of Orange had nearly sixty 
thousand. He went to reconnaitre the position taken by Conde ; 
and thinking it unassailable, he resolved to move towards Le 
Quesnoy. To accomplish this object he marched from Seneff on 
the 11th of August, at the earliest dawn of day, leaving, by this 
movement, his flank exposed to the French army. The con- 
queror of Rocroy was not the man to leave such a fault unpunished. 
" We have only to attack them to beat them," cried he, laugh- 
ing, t Accordingly, dividing his cavalry into three squadrons, 
and placing himself at the head of the first, he fell upon the van- 
guard of the enemy with a tremendous shock, and with the most 

* Historical Essay by Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde. 
f Gourville, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 175. 



280 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xti. 

complete success. The vanguard, beset on all sides, sought refuge 
in the centre of their army, which had taken up its position on a 
hill close to the village of Seneff, defended by orchards and hedges, 
as well as by the declivity of the ground. Two attacks on the 
part of the French failed before such obstacles. More and more 
inflamed, Conde ordered M. de Fourille, one of his Generals, to 
make a third attack. " Monseigneur," said this officer, " I will 
" go everywhere your Highness commands ; but I must repre- 
" sent to you that the position of the enemy is such that it cannot 
" be forced without great bloodshed." " I well see," replied the 
Prince fiercely, " that you like better to reason than to fight ; 
" but it is obedience that I ask of you, and not advice." The 
brave Fourille, stung to the quick by this unjust reproach, added 
not another word, but marched headforemost towards the enemy, 
as if to wash out this stain with his own blood. He did indeed 
receive soon after a mortal wound.* A crowd of officers and 
soldiers fell around him. However, by dint of valour and sacri- 
fice of life, the troops reached the summit of the hill, and Mon- 
sieur le Prince entered victoriously the formidable position of 
the enemy. 

The enemy had however retreated in good order to the village 
of Faith. There the Prince of Orange called all his troops to- 
gether, and ranged them in order of battle, in a position still 
stronger than the last, defended by gardens, hedges, ditches, and 
marshes. Conde might and ought to have been contented with 
his first triumphs : a new one could only be achieved by making 
immense sacrifices. Without allowing himself to be discouraged 
by these considerations, he gave the signal for attack ; and the 
French charged with the same vigour as though they had not yet 
fought. Several times they succeeded in breaking through the 
enemy ; several times they were themselves repulsed. As fast as 
one battalion gave way, another took its place ; blood flowed on 
every side ; every one did his duty, with the exception of two 
battalions of Swiss, which, scared at the slaughter, refused to 
proceed any further. The chiefs of the opposite army gave a 
like example of the most brilliant valour. The Prince of Orange 
remained calm and serene during six hours in the midst of the 
fight ; he had several horses killed under him, and was also several 
* Desormeaux, vol. iv., p. 398. 



1674.] BATTLE OF SENEFF. 281 

times on the point of being taken. On the other hand, the 
Prince of Conde had two horses killed under him ; and on the 
second of these occasions was flung with great violence into a 
fosse. His son, the Duke d'Enghien, who fought at his side, 
threw T himself before him, and assisted him in rising, bruised and 
bleeding, from his fall. He himself was wounded while in the 
discharge of this sacred duly, and in saving the life of a father 
who passionately loved him. 

Night, however, came ; but produced no pause. The conflict 
continued by moonlight. By eleven o'clock, however, the moon 
herself had disappeared, and darkness separated the combatants. 
At that time the enemy were still in possession of the post they 
had occupied, but the ground was strewed with twenty-seven 
thousand corpses ! Conde, notwithstanding his weakness of 
health, had been seventeen hours on horseback. While lying 
upon a cloak, at the corner of a hedge, and in the midst of the 
dead and dying, he gave his orders for recommencing the conflict 
at the break of day. But the soldiers on both sides were equally 
discouraged by their immense losses. The enemy commenced a 
retreat before sunrise. On the other hand the greater part of 
the French divisions dispersed at the sound of this retreat ; and 
thus it may be said that both armies fled at the same time. 
Conde hereupon only thought of rallying and recalling his troops. 
Towards nine o'clock in the morning he re-entered his camp at 
Pieton. " I met him,"' says Gourville, M a league from the 
" camp, returning in his open carriage. He could hardly speak 
r from exhaustion ; but yet he did not omit telling me, that if 
" the Swiss would have pushed on, he should have succeeded 
4i in defeating the whole army of the enemy." * 

Such was the battle of Seneff, of which each party claimed 
the victory ; for which the Te Deum was chaunted at Brussels 
and Madrid, no less than at Paris. It was no doubt very glori- 
ous for William of Nassau, who had scarcely attained his twenty- 
fourth year, to have balanced even for a moment the former 
renown of Monsieur le Prince : and allowing for the dispropor- 
tion between Conde and Fuentes, it might be said that the 
Prince of Orange did nearly as much at Seneff against Conde, 
as Conde had himself done in his youth at Rocroy. Conde ge- 
* Gourville, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 179. 



282 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xii. 

nerously took pleasure in doing full justice to his adversary, say- 
ing that the Prince of Orange had everywhere behaved himself 
like an experienced captain ; but that he had exposed his own 
person too much. The French, however, could display as war- 
rants and proofs of their victory at Seneff a hundred standards, 
and nearly five thousand prisoners. These latter were treated 
with great consideration by Monsieur le Prince. He set free 
some of the officers on parole, and sent the others to Pheims, 
where they were loaded with honours and attentions. It is re- 
lated of one of them, the Count de Staremberg, that he took it 
into his head, at a great feast, to drink the health of the Prince 
of Orange. " He is a man of honour," added he, " on whom I 
" shall rely all my life : he had promised me that I should drink 
" Champagne in Champagne, and you see that he has kept his 
" word ! " * 

The King was not satisfied at seeing Conde, without any de- 
cisive result, so careless and lavish in shedding the blood of his 
soldiers. However, on his return his Majesty gave him a recep- 
tion full of kindness and grace. He went to meet him as far as 
the great staircase at Versailles ; the Prince, who had nearly 
lost the use of his limbs from gout, was ascending it very slowly : 
" Sire," exclaimed he from a distance, " I crave your Majesty's 
" pardon if I keep you waiting." — " My cousin," replied Louis 
XIV., " do not hurry yourself : when one is so laden with laurels, 
u one can hardly walk so fast ! " j* 

At the commencement of the campaign of 1675, Conde once 
more undertook the command in Flanders. But the {leath of 
Turenne, killed in the lines of Stollhofen at the very moment he 
seemed on the point of attaining a great victory, lowered the 
hopes of France, and emboldened her enemies to pass the Rhine. 
The King ordered Conde to go and take the place of his former 
rival, by putting himself at the head of the army in Alsace. This 
laborious task hardly suited his decaying health. " I own to you," 
wrote the Prince to the Marquis de Louvois, " that I consider 
" myself very little fit to serve his Majesty well in the post to 
" which he has destined me. It is a country of great toil ; 

* Desormeaux, vol. iv. p. 415. Gourville attributes this jest to the 
Count of Waldeck. (Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 181.) 
f Menagiana, vol. ii., p. 283. 



1675.] HIS LAST CAMPAIGN. 283 

§ and my health is so uncertain, that I much dread its failing 
I me, particularly if the cold sets in before the end of the 
" autumn. You know that I warned you of this before I set out. 
p However, I shall obey." He found on his arrival the army of 
Alsace already much enfeebled and disorganised, and the division 
commanded by Marshal de Crequy already beaten at Consar- 
bruck. Besides, Turenne's plan for this campaign had perished 
with him. " How much I wish," said Conde to one of his 
officers, " that I could have conversed only two hours with the 
" ghost of Monsieur de Turenne — so as to be able to follow the 
f scope of his ideas !"* It was necessary to limit himself only 
to preventing further misfortunes. Monsieur le Prince obliged 
the enemy to raise the siege of Haguenau : and although he 
continued always to act upon the defensive, his well-devised 
manoeuvres forced them at the end of two months to recross the 
Rhine. 

It was with this campaign that the great Conde terminated his 
military career. He felt that there are circumstances in which 
bodily strength is no less necessary than mental activity ; and he 
feared, with some reason, to compromise in the end both the good 
of the State, and the reputation which thirty-five years of exploits 
had obtained for him. When therefore in the following campaign 
the King again offered him the command of the army of Alsace, 
Conde entreated his Majesty to intrust it to his son, promising that 
he would follow him to the wars, and assist him everywhere by his 
counsels. Louis XIV. would not listen to this arrangement, and 
Conde hereupon retired to Chantilly. The Prince's panegyrists 
attribute this refusal to the mean jealousy of Louvois ; but would 
it not be perhaps more just to acknowledge that the Duke 
d'Enghien had not inherited his father's talents ? Here is what 
the Duke de St. Simon says on this subject, a long time after : — 
" Monsieur le Prince was never able to make his son understand 
f the first elements of the great art of war. He made this 
f teaching for a long time the principal object of his care and 
" study. The son tried to do the same, but was never able to 
f acquire the least aptitude for any portion of the art of war, 
r although his father hid nothing from him, and was constantly 
r explaining all that relates to it, at the head of his army. 
* Letter of Madame de Sevigne, of August 26, 1675. 



284 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xii. 

" This plan of instruction succeeded no better than the others 
" had done.''* 

The public saw with regret the two heroes of the Fronde dis- 
appear from active life nearly at the same time : " We have 
" nothing but reverses," said they, "since Turenne has been at 
" St. Denis, and Conde* at Chantilly." But victory was soon 
restored to the French standard by a pupil — we might add, a 
rival in fame — of Conde, the Marechal de Luxembourg, known 
formerly by the title of Count de Boutteville. 

Conde's son and his friends often pressed him during his retreat 
at Chantilly to write the history of his campaigns ; but he always 
refused. He did not wish to boast of his victories, and he always 
candidly acknowledged his reverses. " This man," says La 
Bruyere, " so fall of glory and of modesty, has been heard to say 
" ' I ran away/ with the same grace as he said ' We beat them.' ' 
Being himself simple, he disliked ostentation in others. One day 
that the Duke de Candale, who was at his house, affected never to 
speak of his own father, the Duke d'Epernon, without adding the 
word Monsieur — the Prince, whose patience was tired out, ex- 
claimed, " Monsieur my master of the horse, tell Monsieur my 
if coachman to harness Messieurs my horses to my carriage !" 

Condi's greatest pleasure in his declining years was to embel- 
lish the retreat which he had chosen for himself. Long after- 
wards, traces of the hero who directed them were to be found 
amongst the ornaments of Chantilly. " His natural taste for gar- 
" dening," says his great grandson, " found here rather more 
" scope for its indulgence than when he was cultivating pinks 
" in his prison at Yincennes ! " f The beauty and symmetry 
of the Grand and Petit Chateau; the groves, the bowers, 
the walks, the parterres ; those stately statues ; that canal 
which Conde amused himself in excavating ; that prodigious 
number of fountains which were heard night and day, and which 
were ever refreshing the air ; that immense forest, so well laid 
out in avenues and lines, — such is the description given us of 
Chantilly before the Revolution. J Since then, the greater 
number of these wonders of art have disappeared. But nature 

* Memoirs of St. Simon, vol. vii., p. 124, ed. 1829. 
f Historical Essay by Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde, p. 205, ed. 1807. 
X Desormeaux, vol. iv., p. 455. The works of the canal cost upwards of 
40,000 livres yearly. Gourville, vol. ii., p. 136. 



chap, xii.] GALLERY AT CHANTILLY. 285 

does not yield so readily to the violence of man, and knows how 
to repair his ravages. Not long ago (in September 1841) I 
could still find scope to admire the wild recesses of that un- 
pruned forest, those limpid and gushing streams, those light- 
green Arbele poplars which have taken root amidst the ruins 
of the Grand Chateau, and which now surround it with their 
quivering shade ; those mossy paths, and those hawthorn bowers ; 
that Petit Chateau yet standing, and yet filled with souvenirs 
of Conde ; those gardens restored with care, and where the most 
beautiful orange-trees, the most brilliant flowers are once more 
shedding their fragrance. 

The Duke d'Enghien, son of the great Conde, had the most 
exquisite taste for ornamenting Chant illy, and contributed much 
towards it, both during the life and after the death of his father. 
It was he who built the gallery in the Petit Chateau. He 
did not choose to omit in the pictures, which by his orders were 
painted in it, representing the history of his father, any of the 
great actions which Conde had performed at the head of the 
Spanish armies. On the other hand, he would not venture to 
expose to the eyes of all France the exploits which had been 
directed against herself. The painter could not find any means 
for reconciling the wishes of the Duke with his scruples. 
Enghien himself supplied a very happy device for this object. 
The Muse of History is represented as tearing with indigna- 
tion, and flinging far from her, the leaves of a book which she 
holds in her hands. On these leaves are written, — " The Relief 
r of Cambray, — The Relief of Valenciennes, — The Retreat from 
"before Arras :" — while in the centre of the picture Conde 
is seen to stand, using all his efforts to impose silence on Fame, 
who with a trumpet in her hand persists in publishing his other 
exploits against France.* This interesting picture still exists at 
Chantilly. 

On another occasion Enghien, after the death of his father, 
entertained the idea of engraving before the portal an inscription 
upon his victories. Though very penurious, he promised a re- 
ward of a thousand crowns to the poet who should compose the 
best inscription. Here is one presented by a Gascon : — 

* Desormeaux, vol. iv., p. 523. 



286 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xii. 

" Pour celebrer tant de vertus, . 
" Tant de hauls faits, et tant de gloire, 
" Mille ecus ! Rien que mille ecus ! 
" Ce n'est pas un sou par victoire I" 

The promised sum was paid to the Gascon, but his verses were 
not employed. 

The great Conde in his retreat loved and cultivated the society 
of men of letters. Several amongst them became his intimate 
friends. Even with these, however, he did not often restrain 
his sudden bursts of vivacity. One day that a poet of very 
moderate talents had come to bring him an epitaph on Moliere, 
he could not refrain exclaiming — " Faith, my friend, I had much 
" rather that Moliere should have brought me yours !" This 
answer has been quoted as a proof of wit,* but it appears to me 
to be only a proof of harshness. 

Another occupation in which Conde took pleasure in his re- 
tirement was to form the mind of his grandson, the young Duke 
de Bourbon. The latter wanted neither sense, bravery, nor a 
taste for gallantry ; he might be worth listening to, but he was 
hideous to look at. According to Madame de Caylus, " His face 
" was more like that of a gnome than that of a man."f Accord- 
ing to the Duke de St. Simon, " All the children of the Duke 
" d'Enghien were nearly dwarfs. Monsieur le Due d'Enghien 
" and Madame la Duchesse were short, but of no very unusual 
" diminutiveness ; and Monsieur le Prince, the hero, who was 
" tall, used to say, pleasantly, that if his race thus continued to 
" dwindle, it would at last come to nothing !"$ 

Conde extended his paternal care to the young Princes of 
Conti, and De la Eoche-sur-Yon, his nephews and wards. In 
1680 he was present at the marriage of the former to Mademoi- 
selle de Blois, an illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV. Up 
to this time he had always preserved the ancient fashion of 
mustachios and a chin-tuft. He dispensed with them on the 
occasion of this marriage. " I will tell you," says Madame de 
Sevigne, " a great piece of news — it is that Monsieur le Prince 
" was shaved yesterday. This is no mere rumour or gossip, it is 

* Historical Essay by Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde, p. 207, ed. 1 807. 
f See a note attached to the Letters of Madame de Sevigne, vol. vi., 
p. 392, ed. 1806. 

X Memoirs of St. Simon, vol. iii., p. 3, ed. 1829. 



1685.] MAEEIAGE OF HIS GKANDSON. 287 

" a fact ; all the Court witnessed it ; and Madame de Langeron, 
" choosing her time when he had his paws folded like a lion, 
" made him put on a justaucorps with diamond buttons. A 
" valet, also taking advantage of his patience, curled his hair, 
" powdered it, and at last reduced him into being only the best- 
" looking man at Court, and with a head of hair that puts 
" all wigs out of competition. This was the prodigy of the 

" wedding Madame de Langeron is the soul of dress at 

" the Hfitel de Conde !"* 

Another marriage of the same kind took place in 1685. The 
young Duke de Bourbon married Mademoiselle de Nantes, daugh- 
ter of Louis XIV. and of Madame de Montespan. Conde had 
accepted with eagerness the offers which had been made to him for 
this alliance by Louis XIY. " He honoured his King," says his 
panegyrist, " as the emblem of his God upon earth. "f The em- 
blem did not show itself ungrateful. Louis XIY. granted to the 
Duke de Bourbon the reversion of the Government of Burgundy, 
and also of the employment of Grand Master ; and " finally 
" Conde 's most anxious wishes were accomplished when the King 
" went to visit him at Chantilly with all his Court. "J 

From his infancy up to the sixty -fourth year of his age, Mon- 
sieur le Prince had lived in entire forgetfulness of all the duties of 
religion. § He was never seen near the altar. He took pleasure 
in scoffing at the most sacred mysteries ; and in Holland he had 
wished to take the atheist Spinosa into his service. The example 
of the Duchess de Longueville, who in 1679 crowned twenty-seven 
years of repentance by a truly Christian and holy death, aimed 
the first blow at his incredulity. He was still more shaken by 
the conversion of his friend and relation, the Princess Palatine, 
who had herself said that the greatest of all miracles would be 
her conversion to Christianity. Struck by these examples, the 
Prince sought enlightenment in the society of such men as 
Nicole, Bourdaloue, and Bossuet. At length, in 1685, he openly 
ranked himself amongst the faithful. This conversion of the 
hero, which had been long wished for, but long since despaired 

* Madame de Sevigne's Letter, January 17, 1680. 
t Desormeaux, vol. iv., p. 473. 

% lb. 

§ These are the words used by his great grandson. (Historical Essay, 
p. 209, ed. 1807.) 

u2 



288 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xii. 

of, was a thunderbolt to unbelievers. Voltaire's writings show 
how much he was exasperated by it : he hastens to declare, though 
without the smallest proof, that " the Prince's mind had grown 
" weak like his body, and nothing was left of the Great Conde 
" during the last two years of his life/'* Thus intolerant is 
impiety ! 

The following year, in the month of December, Conde was at 
Chantilly, when he learnt that the Duchess de Bourbon had 
fallen dangerously ill at Fontainebleau of the small-pox. Not- 
withstanding his very uncertain health, he caused himself to be 
lifted into his coach, and set off instantly to Fontainebleau. 
He met on the road the Duke de Bourbon and his sister, whom 
the King had sent to Paris, so that they should not be exposed to 
the contagion. They were alarmed at seeing Monsieur le Prince 
look so pale and ill, and tried to persuade him to turn back, 
but they could not prevail. Having arrived at Fontainebleau, 
the fatigue of the journey, that of causing himself every day to 
be carried to see his grand-daughter, the unwholesome atmos- 
phere, and his own anxiety, soon completed the ruin of his 
health. The effort which he made one day to go and meet the 
King, and prevent his entering the sick chamber, caused him to 
fall down in a swoon. He was carried to his chamber, which he 
never left again. 

At the first news of his illness Gourville had hastened to his 
bed-side. He found that Monsieur le Prince had a great desire 
to return to Paris. Gourville therefore took steps to have him 
carried thither in a sedan-chair ; but his illness having increased, 
his physicians were of opinion that he could not recover. Conde 
himself felt this. " I see," exclaimed he, " that I am about 
" to make a longer journey than I had thought. "f " Then," 
says the faithful Gourville, " he ordered me to despatch a courier 
" to Paris for Father Deschamps, a Jesuit. He also caused a 
" very touching letter to be written to the King in favour of 
" the Prince of Conti, who was still in disgrace. After which 
" he desired me to draw up a will, by which he directed that the 
u sum of fifty thousand crowns should be given for distribution 
" in those places where he had caused the greatest havoc during 

* Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV., chap. xii. 
•J- Madame de Sevigne's Letter, December 15, 1686. 



1686.] HIS SICKNESS AND DEATH. 289 

" the civil wars — his legacy being designed to maintain the poor 
" and the sick ; and in a few words he declared what he should 
" do for his servants, and for me, to whom he wished to leave 
" fifty thousand crowns, adding kindly that he could never fully 
" repay my services. I made no answer, and went immediately 
" to have the will drawn up by his secretary and his notary with 
" all possible despatch. His Highness having had it read to him, 
" and not having found my name mentioned in it, glanced at me 
" with his sparkling eyes, as if he were angry, and desired me to 
" have the fifty thousand crowns added, of which he had spoken 
" to me. But I thanked him very humbly, reminding him that 
" there was no time to be lost, and begging him to affix his sig- 
" nature — which he did."* 

Father Deschamps not having yet arrived, Conde confessed 
himself to another Jesuit. He then received the Sacrament, 
displaying much piety, repentance, and resignation. " He had," 
says Bossuet, " the Psalms always on his lips, and faith always 
" in his heart." His room was filled with his officers and ser- 
vants on their knees, and resounded with their groans and sighs. 
Soon after, the Duke d'Enghien arrived. Conde still had suffi- 
cient strength left to converse with this son, whom he had always 
tenderly loved. When Enghien had in some measure recovered 
his composure, he announced to the Prince that the King, out 
of regard for him, had pardoned the Prince of Conti. The half- 
closed eyes of the dying man brightened at this announcement. 
He replied to his son, that he could not have told him any news 
which was more agreeable to him, and he then dictated a few 
lines of thanks to his Majesty ; after which he took leave, with 
tenderness but firmness, of the Duke, the Duchess, and all his 
household. At length he expired at seven o'clock in the evening, 
on the 11th of December, 1686. 

I have found some further details in an unpublished letter of 
the English Ambassador at Paris: — " The King sent to know 
" how the Prince did since his last fit. When the gentleman 
" charged with this message entered the room, the Prince was 
" already speechless ; he however took the gentleman by the 
" hand, and laid it upon his heart, to mark that he thanked the 

* Gourville, Memoirs, vol. ii., pp. 236—238. 



290 LIFE OF CONDE. [chap. xii. 

6C King for his inquiry. No one ever died with less concern ; 
" and he preserved his senses to the last minute." * 

The funeral oration on Monsieur le Prince was pronounced 
at Notre Dame by the illustrious Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. 
It is, perhaps, the masterpiece of that great writer. Conde's 
body was carried, as he had wished, to the church of Vallery, four 
leagues from Sens, to be buried by the side of his parents and 
ancestors. His heart was deposited in the Jesuits' church in 
the Rue St. Antoine, at Paris. " In carrying to the same 
" place," says his great grandson, " the heart of my uncle, the 
" Count de Clermont, I had an opportunity of seeing all the 
" hearts of our ancestors, which are deposited there, enclosed 
" in silver -gilt cases ; and I remarked (as did also those who 
" accompanied me) that the heart of the Great Conde was nearly 
" double the size of all the others." t 

Some years previous to the death of Conde* he had written a 
letter to the King, which was to be given to him after that event. 
This letter, which he had confided to the care of Gourville, was 
accordingly delivered by him to his Majesty. It contained 
general recommendations of his family, and of Gourville him- 
self, to the King's kindness, for their good and loyal services ; 
and it entreated the King never to allow the Princess to leave 
her prison at Chateauroux. J The justice of the Monarch 
yielded to the prayer of the hero. On the other hand the Duke 
d'Enghien, now become Prince of Conde, and in the enjoyment 
of the great estates of the House of Breze, which he must otherwise 
have restored to his mother, never protested against this sentence. 
The unhappy Clemence, therefore, remained in her prison. We 
find no details, no account of her last years ; we know only that 
she died in April, 1694, and that she was buried in the church 
of St. Martin, at Chateauroux. I caused a letter to be written 
with the view of obtaining from that town the inscription on her 
tomb ; but the answer which I received in April, 1839, was as 
follows : — " The church of St. Martin was sold as national pro- 

* Earl of Arran's Despatch, December 14, 1686 ; MS., State Paper Office. 

f Essay by Louis Joseph, Prince of Conde, p. 219, ed. 1807. 

X Gourville, Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 260. Mademoiselle regards this letter, 
with reason, as a blot upon the memory of Conde. " I could have wished 
" that he had not begged the King always to detain his wife at Chateauroux : 
" I regretted it extremely." 



chap, xii.] CONCLUSION. 291 

" perty. Some time after (no doubt, I conceive, in 1793), 
" some ruffians forced open the chapel in which was the tomb 
" of the Princess of Conde, carried off the leaden coffin, and 
" scattered the remains. The proprietor of the church," adds 
my correspondent, " sold, at Orleans, the marble tablet on which 
" was the inscription for which you ask me. I have made re- 
" searches at the library of the town, and among the archives of 
" the Prefecture, for a copy of this inscription, but I could dis- 
" cover nothing* of the kind.'' 

Such was the life, and such the death, of Louis de Bourbon 
and Claire Clemence de Maille, Prince and Princess of Conde. 
If I have now, as I hope, faithfully related their actions, I need 
not attempt to describe their characters— it is henceforth the 
reader's part to judge them. 



( 292 ) 



APPENDIX. 



THE FOLLOWING LETTERS ARE PRINTED FROM THE ORI- 
GINALS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR. 



Lettre du Prince de Conde a son JBeau-frere le Due de 
Longueville. 

a Vallery, ce 23 Juin, 1660. 
Monsieur, — J'ai re^u une lettre de Caillet par laquelle il me 
mande que M. le Cardinal lui avoit dit que le Koi partiroit le 
14 ; qu'il seroit pres de vingt jours a aller a Poitiers, et que de 
Poitiers i] iroit a Blois par le droit chemin. C'est tout ce qu'il 
me mande, et qu'il ne me dep£chera d'expres qu'apres que la 
Cour sera a Bordeaux. Comme je vous crois a cette heure a 
Paris, vous en pourrez savoir davantage, vu m6me que mon 
frere y est. Ainsi c'est a vous a regler notre depart ; je suis 
tout pret pour cela, et je me trouverai a Orleans le jour que 
vous me le manderez. Je vous supplie done apres que vous 
aurez vu les gens qui vous en pourront eclaircir, de me mander 
le jour qu'il faudra que je m'y trouve ; et je n'y manquerai pas. 
Je vous laisse le soin de tout cela, et suis, 

Monsieur, 
Votre tres-humble et tres-affectionne' 

Frere et Serviteur, 

Louis de Bourbon. 



Lettre de la Princesse de Conde a son Pere, le Marechal Due 
de Breze. 

Ce 18 Juillet, 1641. 

Monsieur, mon tres-cher Pere, — J'ai re^u un extreme 

deplaisir de n'avoir point eu l'honneur de vous dire adieu. J'ai 



UNPUBLISHED LETTERS. 293 

demeure chez vous jusques a dix heures du soir pour recevoir ce 
contentement-la, avec celui de vous assurer que je ne desire rien 
au monde comme de vous pouvoir temoigner par mes tres- 
humbles services combien je vous honore et de quelle sorte je 
vous respeeterai toute ma vie, comme le doit, 

Monsieur, 

Votre tres-humble et tres-affectionnee 

Fille et Servante, 

3£ DE MaILLE. 



294 APPENDIX. 



COMMENTARIES OF NAPOLEON ON SOME OF THE 
CAMPAIGNS OF CONDE. 



Among the Melanges Historiques of Napoleon which were dic- 
tated at St. Helena to Count Montholon, and published in Lon- 
don (both in French and English) in 1823, is comprised a 
Precis des Guerresdu Marechalde Turenne, (vol. iii. pp. 1-152.) 
Such observations from this military Life of Turenne as bear 
upon the campaigns of his no less illustrious rival the Prince of 
Conde will be found extracted in the following pages. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1644. 

Observation 1. — Turenne should have encamped under Fri- 
bourg, which would have hindered Mercy from besieging that 
place. With so considerable an army, although inferior to that 
of Mercy, he might have done more than he did to defend Fri- 
bourg. He should at least have taken a position to intercept the 
enemy's convoys. 

2. — The Prince of Conde infringed one of the maxims of 
mountain warfare : never to attack troops which occupy good 
positions in the mountains, but to dislodge them by occupying 
camps on their flanks or in their rear. Had he taken up a 
position commanding the Val de Saint-Pierre, Mercy would have 
been immediately compelled to take the offensive, which he could 
not have done with an inferior army ; besides, that would have 
been returning to the principles of mountain warfare. He would, 
therefore, have been obliged to pass the Black Mountains to re- 
gain Wurtemberg, and to abandon the fortress of Fribourg, 
which would have been left to itself. The French army suc- 
ceeded, on the first day, in forcing the first positions by unparal- 
leled efforts of courage ; but it failed on the next day but one, 
because, amongst mountains, when one position is lost, another of 
equal strength is immediately found to stop the enemy. As the 
Prince of Conde meant to attack, he should have attacked on the 



COMMENTAKIES OF NAPOLEON. 295 

4th, in the hope that Mercy would not have had time enough to 
secure his new position. 

3. — Turenne's conduct, after the departure of the Prince of 
Conde, was skilful ; he was, however, wonderfully seconded by 
the circumstances of the ground. The armies of Bavaria and 
Lorraine were separated by the Rhine and by mountains, and 
their junction was a difficult operation. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1645. 
Observation 1. — The Prince of Conde was wrong, at Nordlingen, 
in attacking Mercy in his camp, with an army almost entirely 
composed of cavalry, and with so little artillery : the attack of 
the village of Allerheim was a great undertaking. Although 
Conde's army was superior in cavalry, both armies were equal in 
infantry, and Mercy's wings were strongly supported. It is not 
extraordinary that Conde, without howitzers and with so little 
artillery, should have failed in all his attacks on Allerheim, when 
that place was supported, at the distance of 100 toises, by the line 
of battle ; and all its houses, as well as the church and cemetery, 
embattled and defended by an infantry superior to the French, 
not only in number, but in quality. Had it not been for Mercy's 
death, the Bavarians would have remained masters of the field of 
battle, and the retreat of the Prince of Conde across the Wur- 
temberg Alps would have proved most fatal to his army. 

2. — Notwithstanding the death of Mercy, the Bavarians would 
still have gained the victory, if John de Werth, on his return 
from pursuing the right wing of the French, had advanced against 
Turerme, not by first resuming his former position, and thus tra- 
versing two sides of the triangle, but by crossing the plain dia- 
gonally, leaving Allerheim on his right, and falling on the rear 
of the cavalry of Weimar, which was then engaged with Glein's 
Austrian troops. By this plan he would have succeeded ; but he 
was not daring enough. The angle he made retarded his move- 
ment only half an hour; but the fortune of battles frequently de- 
pends on the slightest accident. 

3. — Notwithstanding the death of Count de Mercy, and the cir- 
cumspection of John de Werth, the Bavarians would still have 
conquered, if the infantry, posted at the village of Allerheim, had 



296 APPENDIX. 



not, although victorious, capitulated. The capitulation accepted 
or proposed by these troops is a new proof that a body of troops 
in line ought never to capitulate during a battle. The loss of 
this battle was occasioned by the erroneous principle generally 
received amongst the German troops, that when once they are 
surrounded they may capitulate ; thus assimilating themselves, by 
an unfortunate misapprehension, to the garrison of a fortress. If 
the military code of Bavaria had prohibited such a proceeding 
as dishonourable, it would not have taken place, and the Bava- 
rians would have conquered. No sovereign, nation, or general, 
can have any guarantee, if the officers are allowed to capitulate 
on the field, and to lay down their arms according to the terms 
of a contract favourable to the individuals of the corps contract- 
ing it, but injurious to the army. Such conduct ought to be 
proscribed, declared infamous, and punished with death. Deci- 
mation should be inflicted : of the generals and officers, one in 
ten ought to suffer ; of the subalterns, one in fifty ; and of the 
common men, one in a thousand. He or they by whom the order 
to surrender arms to the enemy is given, and those who obey that 
order, are equally traitors, and deserving of capital punishment. 
4. — Conde merited victory by the obstinacy and extraordinary 
intrepidity which distinguished him : for although these qualities 
availed him nothing in the attack on Allerheim, they impelled 
him, after having lost his centre and his right, to renew the action 
with his left, the only force he had left ; for it was he who directed 
all the movements of this wing, and who is entitled to all the glory 
of its success. Observers of ordinary minds will say, that he 
ought to have made use of the wing which remained untouched, 
for the purpose of securing his retreat, and not to have j hazarded 
the remainder of his forces ; but with such principles a general is 
sure to miss every opportunity of success, and to be constantly 
beaten. It was thus that the Count de Clermont reasoned at 
Crevelt, Marshal Contades at Minden, and the Prince of Soubise 
at Wilhelmsthal. The glory and honour of his country's arms 
is the first duty which a general who gives battle ought to attend 
to ; the safety and preservation of his men is but the second ; but 
their safety and preservation is, in fact, to be found in that daring 
and obstinacy itself; for even had the Prince of Conde commenced 
a retreat with Turenne's corps, he would have lost nearly all his 



COMMENTARIES OF NAPOLEON. 297 

men before he could have reached the Ehine. It was thus that 
after Minden, Marshal Contades lost in his retreat, not only the 
honour of his country's arms, but more men than he would have 
lost in two battles. Conde's conduct is therefore worthy of imi- 
tation. It is agreeable to the spirit, the rules, and the feelings 
of warriors : if he did wrong in giving battle to Mercy in the 
position he occupied, he did right in never yielding to despair 
while he had brave men under his colours. By this conduct he 
gained the victory, and deserved to gain it. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1652. 

Observation 1. — Turenne had warned Marechal d'Hocquin- 
court that his quarters were exposed. 

2. — His able and successful manoeuvre to impose on Conde was 
considered, at the time, as the greatest service he could have ren- 
dered the Court. In fact, had he suffered himself to be in- 
timidated, the Court would have been compelled to quit Gien, 
which would have had an unfavourable influence on political 
affairs ; but it is evident that the Marshal had no intention to 
maintain his position ; he had made every preparation for retreat- 
ing in case Conde had decided on attacking him, as is proved by 
the precaution he took to withdraw all the posts stationed in the 
wood, in order to avoid exposing them, and being forced to en- 
gage against his will ; for when once an affair has commenced 
partially, it gradually becomes general. He kept his troops 
together, sufficiently near the defile to render its passage danger- 
ous to the Prince, and to annoy him by the fire of a battery 
planted so as to play through the whole length of the defile, but 
sufficiently removed to prevent the compromising of any part of 
his force. This circumstance may appear trifling, but it is one of 
those trifles which are the indications of military genius. 

3. — This delicate manoeuvre, executed with so much talent and 
prudence, cannot, however, be recommended. As soon as Tu- 
renne had mustered his cavalry, he should have retired towards 
Saint-Fargeau, and not have returned and marched forward until 
after his junction with Marechal d'Hocquincourt. The rules of 
war require a division of an army to avoid engaging, alone, a 
whole army which has already obtained successes. It is risking 



298 APPENDIX. 



a total and irretrievable overthrow ; the Prince of Conde had 
above 12,000 men, and Turenne only 4000. 

4. — The rendezvous for the two armies in quarters was fixed too 
near the enemy ; this was an error : the point of junction for an 
army, in case of surprise, should always be fixed in the rear, so 
that the troops from all the cantonments may reach it before the 
enemy. On this principle it should have been fixed between 
Briar e and Saint-Fargeau. 

5. — Turenne's march against the Duke of Lorraine was at- 
tended with every possible advantage. 1 . He himself got out of 
difficulties by it, for at the camp of Etampes he was between the 
two armies, whereas when he reached Gros-Bois he had passed 
them both. 2. He reserved to himself the possibility of engaging 
the Duke of Lorraine singly, and defeating him. 3. The inte- 
rest, character, and disposition of that Prince authorized Tu- 
renne to expect that he should easily be able to make him adopt 
the course most suitable to the King, as soon as he could meet 
with him alone. 

6. — Turenne's stay at the camp of Villeneuve Saint-Georges 
during six weeks, in presence of two armies superior in strength, 
was very hazardous. What motive could have induced him to 
incur so much danger ? His camp was not too strong to be 
forced, and such an occurrence would have been his ruin, and 
that of the Court party. His situation appeared so critical that 
it retarded the submission of Paris. 

7. — The Prince of Conde did not display in this cam- 
paign the daring spirit which distinguished the General of 
Fribourg and Nordlingen ; he ought not to have suffered him- 
self to be overawed at Bleneau by demonstrations ; even when 
united, the two Royal armies were inferior to his ; he ought to 
have been convinced, as by demonstration, that there could not 
be any considerable force before him ; he contented himself with 
an insignificant advantage, and stopped short at preliminaries, 
without pushing his enterprise to a conclusion. With a little of 
his habitual daring, he must have obtained the last favours of 
fortune : he neglected to gather the fruits of his own calcula- 
tions, and of Marechal d'Hocquincourt's error. 

8. — After his junction with the Duke of Lorraine, as he had 
such a superiority of strength, it is not easy to understand why 



COMMENTARIES OF NAPOLEON. 299 

he was satisfied with intrenching himself on the heights of Li- 
meil, instead of attacking the King's army : he might have had 
as much artillery as he pleased, being so near Paris ; and nothing 
but a decisive victory could, under the circumstances, retrieve 
his affairs and maintain his party in the capital. Conde on that 
day was not sufficiently daring. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1G53. 



Observation 1. — This campaign consisted entirely of ma- 
noeuvres, and is very interesting. The Prince of Conde did not 
command the Spanish army, and the Archduke was unwilling to 
compromise his army ; his intention was to take a few fortresses 
to complete the Flemish frontier, to keep up the war in Picardy 
and Champagne, and, if a good opportunity should occur, to beat 
the French army without risk. This plan was conformable to 
the interest of Spain. But what the Prince of Conde wished, was 
to march to Paris at all hazards, to support the party of the 
Fronde, encourage the revolt of Bordeaux, and increase the 
number of the disaffected, which was already very considerable. 

Under these circumstances, the line of conduct adopted by 
Turenne was proper ; but it would have been very dangerous in any 
other conjuncture. To march by the side of an army of twice 
your own strength, is always a very difficult operation ; there are 
few positions strong enough to protect an army so inferior in 
number. Nor does it appear that he took the precaution to pitch 
his camp every evening in a chosen position : on the contrary, 
he frequently encamped in very bad positions, where his army 
was in imminent danger, as at Mont Saint-Quentin. He was 
indebted to chance for the good position which he took up a few 
hours after, and which was not so strong but that it would have 
been forced if the Prince of Conde had prevailed. 

2. — When surprised at Mont Saint-Quentin, the first idea that 
would have occurred to an ordinary general would have been to 
cover himself by the Somme, repassing it at Peronne, from which 
place he was not above half a league distant ; but what would 
have happened in that case ? The enemy would also have passed 
the Somme, and it would have been necessary to remain in posi- 
tion and risk an engagement to stop him. In the mean time this 



300 APPENDIX. 



movement of retreat would have operated on the courage of the 
troops, and on that of the enemy in an inverse proportion. To 
pass the Somme would have adjourned the difficulty, but at the 
same time increased it ; the evil of the moment would have been 
warded off, but only by rendering the state of affairs worse. Tu- 
renne ventured everything, and marched to meet the enemy ; he 
was certain that, by this movement, he should disconcert them, 
increase their irresolution, and gain a day, because they would 
have to make some alteration in their line of march, which had 
been taken on the supposition that he would occupy Mont Saint- 
Quentin. After having seen and reconnaitred the enemy, it would 
be time enough, during the night, to take a determination. It 
was, moreover, probable, that in this hilly country the army 
would find a good position, capable of being intrenched in a few 
hours, and the reputation of the army would have been pre- 
served — a point which is so essential to the strength of an army. 
Turenne intrenched himself: that great captain often made use 
of field-works ; but his army contained too much cavalry, and too 
small a proportion of infantry, for him to derive all the advan- 
tage possible from the science of the engineer. In this war of 
marches and manoeuvres he should have intrenched himself every 
night, and placed himself in a good posture of defence ; the na- 
tural positions commonly met with are insufficient to shelter an - 
army from another which is more numerous, without the aid of art. 

There are military men who ask what is the use of fortified 
places, intrenched camps, and the art of the engineer? We will 
ask them how it is possible to manoeuvre with inferior or equal 
forces without the aid of positions, fortifications, and all the sup- 
plementary resources of art ? It is probable that if the Prince 
of Conde had commanded, he would have attacked on the very 
evening of his arrival, which would have disconcerted Turenne, 
who had an inferior army, and who had adopted the plan of a 
campaign of observation, which required that he should never 
compromise himself. 

Achilles was the son of a goddess and of a mortal : this is em- 
blematical of the genius of war ; the divine part is all that is de- 
rived from the moral considerations of the character, talents, and 
interest of your adversary ; of public opinion ; of the spirit of the 
troops, who are strong and victorious, or feeble and beaten, ac- 



COMMENTARIES OF NAPOLEON. 301 

cording as they think it themselves : the earthly part is arms, 
intrenchments, positions, orders of battle, and all that belongs 
to the combination of physical means. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1654. 

Observation 1. — The Marechal de Turenne attacked the Spa- 
nish lines by night, in order to mask his movement ; but noc- 
turnal marches and operations are so uncertain, that although 
they sometimes succeed, they more frequently fail. The Prince 
of Conde, who was at the most distant quarter from the point of 
attack, nevertheless arrived in time to keep the French in check ; 
and if the Spaniards had possessed his resolution, or been under 
his command, it is doubtful whether the result of the attack would 
have been the same. The principal defence of lines is the fire that 
can be kept up : the Archduke's army was superior in cavalry ; it 
was double that of Turenne at the time of his arrival, and before 
the junction of La Ferte and D'Hocquincourt. It is impossible 
to conceive how the Archduke could fail to attack and defeat 
Turenne's army. He thought to take the town in his presence 
without risking a battle. 

2. — Ought an army, which is besieging a place, to cover itself 
by lines of circumvallation ? Ought it to await the attack of an 
army of succour in its lines ? Ought it to divide itself into two 
armies, one charged with the siege and the other to protect it, 
and called the besieging army and the army of observation? 
Within what distance from each other is it proper for these two 
corps d'armee to remain ? 

The Romans and the Greeks, the great captains of the 15th 
and 16th centuries, the Duke of Parma, Spinola, the Prince of 
Orange, the Great Conde, Turenne, Luxembourg, and Prince 
Eugene, covered their sieges by lines of circumvallation. The 
example of the ancients can be no authority to us, our arms being 
so different from theirs. That of the great generals of the 15th 
and 16th centuries is more respectable ; but armies at that time 
carried but little artillery into the field, and the use of howitzers 
was unknown. 

Those military men who recommend to have no lines, and no 
field-works, or very few, advise a general who is to besiege a 

x 



302 APPENDIX. 






place to beat the enemy's army in the first instance, and to be- 
come master of the country. This advice is, no doubt, excellent, 
but the siege may last some months, and the enemy may return, 
at the most decisive moment, to the relief of the place. Or a ge- 
neral may wish to take a fortified place without running the risk 
of a battle ; in that case what line of conduct ought he to pursue ? 

An army which means to carry on a siege before an enemy's 
army, ought to be strong enough to keep in check the army of 
succour, and carry on the siege at the same time. Engineers re- 
quire the besieging army to be seven times the number of the 
garrison. If the army of succour be 80,000 men, and the gar- 
rison 10,000, it will require, therefore, an army of 150,000 men 
to besiege a place ; and by reducing the besieging army to the 
minimum, that is to say, to four times the strength of the gar- 
rison, it would still require 120,000 men: but if there are only 
90,000, the army of observation can only consist of 50,000 men, 
and will not be independent, but must keep itself in a situation 
to be succoured in a few hours by the besieging army ; but if 
there are but 80,000 men, there will only remain 40,000 for the 
army of observation, which must then remain at the siege, and 
even in the lines ; it would expose itself too much by removing 
to a distance from them. 

The divisions employed in the works of the siege are stationed 
round the place, each guarding a part of the circumference. 
You should encamp them so that one line may face the fortress to 
restrain the sallies of the garrison, and that another may face the 
country, the better to observe all that may arrive thence, and in- 
tercept all that may offer to enter the town, whether couriers, 
convoys of provisions, or reinforcements of men. To accomplish 
these ends the more efficaciously, it is natural for the troops to 
cover themselves by lines of countervallation and circumvallation, 
which occupies them only a few days. The profile used by Vau- 
ban for the lines of countervallation No. 1, is two and a half 
cubic toises to every toise in length, and for the countervallations 
No. 6, sixteen. Six men can construct the former in eight hours, 
and three men the latter in four hours : then only does all commu- 
nication between the country and the place become impracticable, 
the blockade secured, all surprise rendered impossible, and the 
army may sleep in quiet. If a detachment of from 3000 to 



COMMENTARIES OF NAPOLEON. 303 

12,000 men, or a corps of 25,000 detached from the army of 
succour, or coming from any other point, were to perform its 
movement undiscovered by the army of observation, and appear 
at day-break, they would be stopped in the first instance by the 
lines, which they could not force until they had reconnaitred 
them well, and collected fascines, tools, and made every necessary 
arrangement. But cannot the army of succour itself gain six, 
nine, or twelve hours on the army of observation, and present 
itself before the place ? In all these cases, if the besiegers are 
not covered by lines of circumvallation, the place will be suc- 
coured, the besiegers, magazines, and park of artillery will be in 
great danger, the works will be filled up, and twelve hours after, 
when the army of observation arrives, it will be too late, the 
mischief will be irretrievable. It is therefore necessary, in 
order to besiege a place before an enemy's army, to cover the 
siege by lines of circumvallation. If the army be so strong, that, 
after leaving before the place a force four times as strong as the 
garrison, it remains as numerous as the army of succour, it may 
separate to a greater distance than one march ; if it remain in- 
ferior after that detachment, it should station itself at the distance 
of five or six leagues from the siege, in order to be in a situation 
to receive succours in one night. If the besieging army and the 
army of observation together be only equal to the army of suc- 
cour, tho whole besieging army ought to remain within the lines 
or near them, and proceed with the works of the siege, pushing 
them on with all possible activity. 

At the siege of Arras the Spanish army consisted of 32,000 
men, of whom 14,000 were infantry, 10,000 musketeers, and 
8000 pikemen. It could therefore only employ the fire of 10,000 
muskets to defend a line of 15,000 toises circumference. Yet 
the Archduke continued his siege for thirty -eight days in the 
presence of Turenne, who was encamped at cannon-shot distance 
from him ; he therefore had thirty -eight days in which to take the 
place ; but, supposing he had neglected to cover himself, he would 
not have been able to carry on his siege twenty-four hours. 
These retrenchments therefore enabled the Archduke to con- 
tinue the trenches and batter the place during these thirty -eight 
days. 

X2 



304 APPENDIX. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1655. 

Observation 1 . — Turenne constantly observed the two maxims 
— 1st. Never attack a position in front when you can gain it by 
turning it. 2nd. Avoid doing what the enemy wishes; and 
that simply because he does wish it. Shun the field of battle 
which he has reconnaitred and studied^ and more particularly 
that in which he has fortified and intrenched himself. 

2. In the course of this campaign the Maitre-de- Camp Bussy, 
who commanded the escort of a foraging party of 1500 chosen 
cavalry, marched through a defile to forage in a fine plain. He 
was surprised by a corps of cavalry of thrice the strength of his 
party, which would probably have been destroyed had not the 
old troopers with one accord cried out, " To the defile /" By 
performing this movement with rapidity and coolness the general 
saved his division. This is the advantage of veteran troops; 
they anticipated the order, and did the only thing that could 
have saved them. 

CAMPAIGN OF 1656. 

Observation 1. — The army commanded by Turenne was*supe- 
rior both in number and quality to the Spanish army : how came 
he to allow it to approach his quarters at Valenciennes, and not 
to march out of his lines to give it battle ? His lines were far 
from equal to those of Arras ; and Marechal de la Ferte's posi- 
tion was evidently unsupported, separated from the rest of the 
army by a river and by an inundation of 1000 toises : this cir- 
cumstance alone ought to have determined him to engage. 

2. — But the stand he made after this check is much to be ad- 
mired : the fact is, however, that the courage of his soldiers, as 
well as of those of Lorraine and the household troops, was un- 
abated, as they had never fought, the rout of Marechal de la 
Ferte having taken place on the other side of the marsh ; but 
what proves that he well deserved the praises lavished upon him 
is, that he was the only one of all the officers who was of 
opinion that it was advisable to wait for the enemy in the posi- 
tion of Le Quesnoy. This was because he had more talent than 
they ; most men think only of avoiding a present danger, without 
troubling themselves about the influence which their conduct 



COMMENTARIES OF NAPOLEON. 305 

may have on subsequent events : with common minds the impres- 
sion of a defeat wears out but slowly and gradually. But what 
would have been the consequence if the opinion of the majority 
had been followed ? — first, the Marshal would not have been 
joined by the remains of La Ferte's army ; and, secondly, a pre- 
cipitate retreat would have disheartened the French army, which 
would have thought itself very inferior to the enemy, and they 
on their part would have grown more enterprising. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1657. 
Observation. — The conduct of the Prince of Conde in reliev- 
ing Cambray was admired, and this action was reckoned one of his 
most brilliant. If Turenne had had forty-eight hours before him, 
and had been protected by his lines, his adversary's manoeuvre 
would huve failed. In the preceding chapter we have seen, that 
when Marshal Turenne besieged La Capelle, he was indebted to 
his lines of circumvallation for the taking of that place ; for Don 
John, having approached within cannon-shot, reconnaitred them, 
but durst not attack them. There was a second instance of this 
kind at Saint- Venant ; the place was taken, owing to its circum- 
vallation, in the presence of the enemy's army. Thousands of 
similar instances might be mentioned in the 15th and 16th cen- 
turies, and in every nation of Europe. And yet there are people 
who ask what is the use of lines of circumvallation ! These 
works have been brought into disrepute, and it is laid down as 
a principle that they ought never to be formed ! 



CAMPAIGN OF 1658. 
Observation 1. — The battle of the Downs was Turenne's 
most brilliant action. He had three great advantages : 1st, A 
numerical superiority: 15,000 men in the field against 14,000; 
9000 infantry against 6000, and ground ill-adapted to horse, 
which rendered the superiority of the Spaniards in cavalry 
of no use to them. 2dly, He had artillery, and his enemy had 
none. 3dly, The English ships at anchor in the roads cannon- 
aded the right flank of the Spaniards, and swept the strand ; the 
more effectually, since Don John had no cannon to keep the 
English sloops at a distance. Turenne was victorious, as was to 
be expected. 



306 APPENDIX. 



2. — His order of battle was parallel ; he had no manoeuvre to 
execute, nor anything out of the ordinary course to perform. As 
soon as he received intelligence that the enemy was approaching 
the lines, he resolved to attack him before he knew that he was 
coming without artillery. He had profited by his experience at 
Valenciennes. When he had resolved to attack, it would have 
been wrong to defer the action for a single day, as that would 
have afforded the Spaniards time to intrench themselves. 

3. — Don John deserved his defeat for advancing within sight of 
Turenne without artillery or tools to intrench himself with. It 
was not with such culpable negligence that Turenne presented 
himself before the lines of Arras. He might have occupied the 
position of Mouchy by ten o'clock in the morning ; but he took 
care not to do so ; he remained all day behind a rivulet, and in 
the evening took up his position : he therefore had the whole 
night to intrench himself. 

4. — After the taking of Dunkirk, and so brilliant a victory as 
that of the Downs, after the junction of Marechal de la Ferte, who 
had just taken Montmedy, and with the inestimable advantage of 
commanding the sea, Turenne might have done more than he did. 
He ought to have struck a great blow, and taken Brussels, which 
would have rendered the French arms far more illustrious, and 
accelerated the conclusion of peace. An event of such import- 
ance would have produced the fall of all the small places. Tu- 
renne infringed the rule which says — " Avail yourself of the 
"favour of Fortune while she is in the humour; beware that 
" she does not change, through resentment of your neglect : she 
" is a woman," 

5. — The conduct of the Spanish garrison of Bergues is remark- 
able. The besiegers refuse to let them march out with their 
arms, and without being made prisoners of war ; they disperse, 
each shifts for himself, and escapes over the morasses ; five-sixths 
of them rejoin their army. Why were these noble resolutions 
not foreseen ? The keys of a place are at any time worth the 
liberty of its garrison, when the garrison is resolved not to leave 
it otherwise than free. 

THE END. 



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